


Supernatural s10

by tobinlaughing



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Charlie Bradbury - Freeform, Dean - Freeform, Demons, Dogs, Emerald City (mention), Gen, Graphic Description, Land of Oz (mention), Mark of Cain, Non-Romance, Original Female Character - Freeform, Sam - Freeform, Saving People Hunting Things, Supernatural - Freeform, TW: Violence, Talking Animals, Tw: extensive injuries, castiel - Freeform, good dogs, how it should have ended, sam and dean - Freeform, supernatural season 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-08 03:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 61,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5481140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobinlaughing/pseuds/tobinlaughing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternative to Supernatural's 10th Season.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome Back, Charlie

There is nothing more to say.  
   
There should have been: Charlie can feel the weight of the words she should say in the air around her, clinging like the smell of smoke that permeates the Bunker: Sam is an indifferent housekeeper and a rather incompetent cook, and the size and efficiency of the Bunker’s HVAC system is not quite up to taking on his attempts at cooking.  
   
He’s told her everything. She’s expressed her shock, her dismay, her sorrow. Sam has no plan and neither does Charlie. There is nothing more to say. So she holds out her arms, and Sam lets himself be hugged (and sweet Egon, he is almost as wide in the shoulders as she is tall) but he doesn’t relax. A look from Castiel tells her that he probably never will. Sharing this burden does not halve it; Sam is going to look at this as a failure as long as Dean is missing. Or gone. Or…demonic. Whatever. Until he’s human Dean and Sam’s human brother again, Sam is going to look at this as his failure.  
   
Castiel leads her along to the living quarters and waits while she stashes the odd collection of luggage she’s brought back from Oz, then shows her where the kitchen is and the main sections of the library. Castiel is sad, and quiet, but not a cipher: Charlie pegs him as a fatalist, as all angels must be on some level—from the little bit he’s said about Dean Charlie has gathered that Dean is—was—important to him, but Castiel has given him up as lost. Strange, for someone who went as far as Hell to drag the man back to Earth.  
   
Charlie gives them a good couple hours to mope while she unpacks: her departure from Oz came on the heels of a pretty good-sized fight with Dorothy, but it wasn’t the soul-rending breakup it _could_ have been. She still likes looking at the lithographs of them together, in the Munchkin-carved pumpkin-wood frames; the hilt of her elephant-tusk machete is still comfortable in her hand, and the breach-loading revolvers that the TinMan knocked together for her are always going to be given a place of honor on the dresser. With the ease born of long practice Charlie makes the little room her own, and tells herself that she’ll get used to the indoor plumbing and throne-like toilet soon enough.  
   
Sam is drinking in the kitchen, studying maps, when she walks in; the state of the counters makes her flinch back from them, but Charlie resolutely turns her back on the sink overflowing with dishes as she tries to lean casually against the charmingly vintage refridgerator.  
She has to repeat his name twice before Sam looks up; when he does, she can see a half-empty beer case on the chair next to him, and a stately collection of bottles on the chair on his other side. She’s only been here for about four hours and he’s twelve beers into the evening. His eyes are red, and Charlie doesn’t think it’s because her return has reopened the fountains of his eyes at Dean’s disappearance.  
   
“Plan?” he repeats blearily. “What plan?”  
   
“Well, I assume you have some kind of plan for finding Dean and exorcising this demon from him,” Charlie explains, trying to not sound as frustrated as she is. Hairtrigger temper, Dorothy would tease her, poking her in the shoulder. “I mean, Winchesters? Right?  This is kind of in your wheelhouse, yesno?”  
   
“He’s not possessed, Charlie,” Sam grates. “His soul is _gone._ Dean _is_  the demon. There’s nothing to exorcise.”

“Then what about the purification you were going to do on Good King Whatsisname?” she shoots back, dredging her memory of their last meeting. “Why wouldn’t that work on Dean?”  
   
“Because he needs to be here for us to trap and hold, and he isn’t.” Castiel’s emotions are nearer to the surface: he might have a beer now and then, but Charlie guesses he’s not as practiced at burying his feelings in beer. Angelic innocence, maybe, but not beer. He sounds raw. “Dean’s soul has been transformed but his memories haven’t. He still knows everything Sam and I know about Hunting, Lore, the Men of Letters—there isn’t anything we can throw at him that he won’t know how to defeat. “

“Well, that doesn’t have to mean Game Over—“  
   
“It is, Charlie.” Sam interrupts her. “As far as we’re concerned, Dean is Game Over. We just have to hope we can overpower him when he comes for us. And he will. He and Crowley know that we’re the best shot at taking them down. Our best bet is to be prepared for that.”  
   
“So tell me how I can  help. Sam, _I want to help_ ,” Charlie insists when Sam starts to shake his head. “I care about you guys, too! C’mon, Dick Roman? The fey magic at Moondor? I mean—frak, Sam, do you think I've just been eating bon bons in the Emerald City for the last year? You two brought me into this whole multiverse of weird shit, you should let me help you sort it out!"

"You can't, Charlie." Sam's eyes are very red. "And I can't let you, because Dean wouldn't forgive me if I let something happen to you."

The air leaves her lungs in a rush, making room for the icy fist that seems to press up into her solar plexus. " _Fuck_ you, Sam," Charlie breathes, then whirls and storms out of the kitchen.

After a moment of staring at the back of Sam's head, Castiel sighs and follows her. Sam finishes his beer and opens another, then turns back to his laptop.

+++

Charlie steams in her room (once she finds it) for a while, then stews in her anger for a while longer before admitting to herself that she's hungry and probably going to have to go back to the kitchen at some point. Maybe Sam and Castiel will be waiting with an apology and a cake and a plan to find Dean....

The thought of cake is what settles it—Oznian pastries were sad, dense little things that mostly consisted of nut-flour shells filled with seemingly endless varieties of marzipan, and Charlie's been allergic to tree nuts her whole life. Peanuts are ok, oddly enough, but right now what she wants is a double-chocoloate cupcake slathered in buttercream frosting and sprinkles. Good old fashioned gluten, baked with simple sugars and dripping in butter derivatives and artifical colorings: Charlie's stomach rumbles, completely ruining her attempts at stealthily approaching the kitchen. 

Which is empty. Small favors, she shrugs to herself, and gingerly moves a pile of plates over on a counter so she can reach the cabinet above. There are staples: cereal, oatmeal, protien bars in every color of the rainbow....and ew, moldy bread and expired, unrefridgerated ranch dip. The fridge is mostly filled with beer and condiments, and a few containers of lunch meats that have a rather unsettling green sheen to them....

The need to _do something_ combines with the need for a clean eating area and soon Charlie's demolishing the mess that is the kitchen, seeking out scouring pads and dish soap and filling no fewer than three of the big black garbage bags she finds under the sink. With no idea where the actual garbage chute or disposal system or whatever is, she decides that she'll bully Sam into at least taking the garbage out tomorrow when he wakes up. The butcher-block table in the middle of the room is covered with notes, newspaper clippings, website printouts—and after a roll of her mental d20 and a critical hit, Charlie sets about collating and organizing Sam's data, grimly ignoring the part of her that keeps repeating how much it feels like an invasion on his private grief. She tells herself she needs the room to stack drying dishes, and that the table needed to be wiped down with disinfecting spray anyway. 

Sam's research is haphazard and fragmentary—signs that he's got a lot of information stored on his laptop—but her glances at his notebook and maps show that he's looking at two major pieces of lore: something called the Mark of Cain, and a relic that he refers to both as the 'AT' and 'angel tab', usually with "see KT #" somewhere in the reference. She figures out that KT stands for Kevin Tran, the Winchesters' friend who...is no longer living at the Bunker but left his notes behind? ...Charlie senses another heartache there. 

She also finds one of Sam's phones amidst the wreckage, and the display informs her that he's missed about nine texts from someone called Garth. At this point, Charlie is being fueled by this afternoon's resentment, as well as the little black raincloud that tends to follow around those people who get stuck cleaning up after their housemates; the swipe-lock pattern on the phone's screen is highlighted in old fingerprint grease, and Charlie has no problem opening up the texts. 

_DK if ur free—ISO bckup 4 hunt in N MA. Wendigo? LMK if ur in_. The timestamp is 10 weeks ago.

 _If ur avail, vamps nesting Omaha. Called J Mills 2. WBN 2 c u guys. LMK_. Still more than two months back.

 _J Mills sez, call when u got a min. She worries. Haunting in STL, u want in? LMK_. A few days after the previous text. Charlie wonders who J Mills is.

_U still in KY? Poss White Lady near/on xroad Rte 87. Called others 2. WBN 2 c u guys. LMK._

_U kno nething re: dragons??? Asking 4 a friend. LMK ASAP. Thx.\_

_FYI: Dragons false alarm. Whew. U guys OK?_

_Ur prolly busy, but poss pltrgst in STL. Also angel sighting. LMK._

_Got any info re: holy oil? Running low. Wolfie can't make it. Thx._

_U Bored? Murder spree in Penn. Dudes sucked dry. I kno u <3 lamias._

The last message is barely an hour old. This Garth sounds like a kind of hunter's switchboard operator, and apparently Sam hadn't been picking up his extension. As though by fate, the phone buzzes and chimes in her hand and a new message appears:

_No one else, Sam. Plz say u can take Penn job._

Charlie grinds her teeth (a bad habit she thought she'd kicked before Oz) and puts the phone back down on the table. The kitchen is as clean as it's going to get; there's really not much to eat besides the peanut butter and crackers Sams seems to have been subsisting on. Research would be a nice change of pace from the frustrating campaigns of Oz, but Charlie has the nagging feeling that Sam's black mood will make the investigation both slow and fraught with dead ends. 

"This is a nice change."

Charlie squeaks and jumps about three feet in the air, banging a hip on the heavy table top  
as she scrambles to turn around. Castiel is standing in the south entrance to the kitchen, wearing an incongruously crisp set of old-fashioned navy-blue pajamas. He's not as tall as she thought he was, not this evening; Charlie wonders idly if the angel is vain enough to wear lifts in his shoes, or if one of the Winchesters steered him in that direction. 

"I...uh...." 

"Sam doesn't have a plan, Charlie." Like everything Castiel says, this sounds like a terminal diagnosis, and Charlie mentally high-fives herself for pegging the angel for a fatalist. The grate of his voice could never belong to a Sophist. "He is going to bury himself in hopeless books and texts until Dean and Crowley defeat the protections on this place, and then he's probably going to let Dean kill him. I will also most likely die, and I don't like to imagine what Dean will do to you if he finds you here."

"So this is you telling me to cut and run, huh?"

"No, I am telling you the truth of the situation. I cannot fathom what Crowley's end game is, nor why he'd prefer to make Dean a Knight of Hell when he'd killed Abbaddon. But whatever Dean might be now, he is still a Winchester, and I have known the Winchesters to talk themselves out of worse situations. None come to mind," he adds, "at this moment, but I'm sure if I thought for a while one would."

Charlie leans against the table. "Do you think this is part of Dean's plan? I mean, could he be playing some long game that we can't quite fathom?"

"Dean is not a long-game player," Cas reminds her. "He is an ass-first whirlwind of entropy, not a planner. There were consequences to taking the Mark of Cain that he didn't know about before it was offered or after it was transferred; he simply saw it as the way to defeat Abbaddon and accepted it."

"Did you know the consequences?"

Cas hesitates, but after a moment he answers, "Yes, I did, but I was not with Dean when the offer was made and accepted. Had I been, I would have attempted to turn him from it." 

"Every time I leave these boys I find them in worse trouble when I get back," Charlie says half-jokingly. "And now I see Sam's given up on hunting altogether." She gestures to the phone on the table.

Cas eyes her sidelong. "Most humans would be afraid to be caught out snooping on someone else's phone."

"Well, I'm not most people, I'm the Queen of Moondoor, and I'm about ready to tear down some walls if there's nothing else to do around here." Charlie cracks her knuckles reflexively. "Any chance you want to join me on a hunt?"

"I did not get to build up my experience as a hunter that much, before the Fall," Cas reminds her, and Charlie just shrugs. 

"Well, you're an angel, and I'm a veteran of the War for Oz, a genius computer whiz, Queen of Moondoor, and something of a hunter myself. So I think we'll do ok." She picks up Sam's phone, unlocks it with ease, and taps out a message to Garth:

 _Tied up, but sending Cas and Charlie. Text details to Charlie_ , and she includes her own secondary phone number.

"Now, d'you think the boys would let us borrow the Impala?"

+++ 

The answer, of course, is 'no, you can't take the Impala', and conveyed not so much by Sam as by the Impala's position in the Men of Letters Parking Garage: Sam managed to excavate a second, smaller garage door off to the side and move some of the other vehicles around so that Dean's Baby could be squeezed into a far corner with a canvas cover cinched down tight, all the way to the tires. Obviously Sam has no desire to use or see this powerful talisman of Dean: even when Dean and Castiel were exiled to purgatory, Sam drove the Impala on his own hunts. Charlie's heart squeezes painfully to see Baby exiled to the rear of the garage like that. 

They are spoiled for other choices, though, and each vehicle has received the Men of Letters treatment: Devil's Traps and Wardings etched and painted into the interiors of doors, hoods, trunk covers, hatches; storage spaces stocked with salt, silver bullets, holy oil and holy water, as well as stakes of various woods and a variety of handy guides to common demonic lore. Charlie nearly squees when she finds 1970 AMC Gremlin painted in chocolate brown with copper detailing rather than chrome. A peek under the hood shows that, like many of its compatriots, this Gremlin was retrofitted to run on alternative fuel sources, and the lingering smell of french fries in the brown-leather interior tells Charlie that this one runs on cooking oil. A spare gallon of canola oil is nestled among the various supernatural-hunting tools stashed in the hatch. Charlie has already decided to name it the Chocolate Frog before she and Cas get all of their gear loaded. 

The interior has been modded, too, and Charlie stashes one of her breech-loaders under the driver's seat. The other is in her belt holster, next to the two knives she borrowed from Dean's room with only a little trepidation: his armory display is mainly intact, but it feels better to have some of his weapons on this hunt with her. She has a sheaf of fake ID badges in her backpack, and she and Cas will work up their story during the five-hour drive to Greencastle, Pennsylvania: by his own admission, Castiel is an unconvincing liar and will need time to get the details of his fake ID committed to memory.

+++  
The state of the kitchen stops Sam for a minute and he actually thinks, clearly and lucidly, _where did the mess go_?--Before Charlie's return and her frustrated insistence that he _do something_ makes it's way to the front of his brain again. 

These one-man parties aren't as easy as they used to be. He can't remember Dean ever--

Sam's head throbs and he's caught between shoving the memories down and away, and trying to recall what Dean's favorite hangover cure was. Something about egg and tabasco and lemon juice, none of which currenty grace the Bunker's pantry. 

"Dammit, Dean," he says, not for the last time that day, "this is all your fault."

He settles for coffee, which—after Charlie's purge—seems to be one of the few ingestible things left in the kitchen. He really needs to go on a supply run. 

His phone, alight with text messages, is on the counter— _not_ where he left it—next to a stack of notebooks, newspaper clippings, and other hard-copy data he'd left scattered on the table when he finally passed out. There's a note in Cas' blocky print under the phone. 

_Dear Sam,_

_I hope our leavetaking did not wake you last night. Charlie and I are responding to a request from your werewolf friend Garth to investigate a string of murders in Greencastle, Pennsylvania. Charlie asks that you take the garbage out before we return._

_Best wishes and we will see you soon,_

_Castiel and Charlie._

He should be angry; after all, Garth's requests were coming to his phone, which meant that someone—Charlie, most likely—had broken into the phone and read them. Also Charlie should not be out in the world alone. Cas shouldn't, either. They most certainly shouldn't be out in the world alone together, not hunting. 

Nothing comes. Sam is not surprised. His grief, his anger, his ...everything has been quiet since Dean died. Seeing Charlie last night was nice, but it didn't open up any floodgates in his much-mended soul, and this new development was equally ineffective at bringing anything to the surface. 

Sam moves to grab the garbage bags, though, because Charlie asked him to, and it's the least he can do in return for her cleaning the kitchen. 

 

+++

Charlie hits the wall hard and cringes down enough to avoid having her head crushed by the toilet-tank lid that smashes into the plaster just after her. Wall board and shattered tile rain down on her head and she coughs, desperate to get her breath back. Castiel is out cold in the corner, felled by a bathroom-stall door, of all things. 

Charlie has decided she hates lamias. 

The monster is lunging after her again and Charlie brings up her salt-loaded gun, blasting a ringingly loud shell into the creature's chest point-blank. The lamia is knocked back across the room and wails in pain, blackish ooze seeping from the dozen lacerations in its torso from the rock salt shell. Even as Charlie watches, gasping for breath, some of the scratches on the lamia's face start to close up and heal over. 

One of the knives she borrowed from Dean is hardened silver and sharp as anything, but they hadn't had time to get it blessed by a priest before Charlie and Castiel literally walked in on the lamia starting in on her latest victim in a restaurant's bathroom. The poor man's wife had grabbed Cas' sleeve as they passed her booth, asking if he'd check on her husband, who had been in the bathroom for a really long time—she was afraid to finish her fries in case he'd gotten food poisoning. Cas had been able to smell the demonic energy from the hallway, and now he was cashing in on a concussion near the handicap stall. The would-be victim was stashed, somewhat safely, in the other stall, the door bent in on the frame after Charlie managed to toss the lamia into it. 

The lamia—formerly a petite blonde waitress; now a scaly-faced, fanged-and-clawed, red-eyed hissing horror—lunges for the bathroom door, and Charlie scrabbles across the tiles to grab her ankle, groping for her knife; blessing or no, she plunges the little blade to the hilt into the monster's calf, getting a spurt of blackish blood to the eye for her troubles. The lamia screeches and falls on top of Charlie, who is still holding the knife, which is still in the lamia's leg, and now they are so entangled that Charlie can't tell if she's yanking on her own arm or not. 

"Castiel! Wake up!" she shouts, finally managing to pull the knife free. Unblessed, it isn't going to kill the monster, but the little silver blade hit right behind her knee and she can't seem to get up yet. Charlie kicks, pushes, and at last gets herself clear of the thrashing creature. "Castiel! I need your help! Cas!"

There is a pounding on the bathroom door and Charlie thinks she can hear someone shouting something that sounds like "police". 

Cas groans, pushes himself to all fours, and reaches into his coat. Charlie has the lamia's wrists (holy mother of dragons this thing is strong) and is focusing everything she has into keeping those black, jagged claws from ripping into her face—when Cas' khaki-covered arm swings into view, holding some kind of weird triangular blade; first he slashes the monster's forearms, and when she rips out of Charlie's grip he plunges the (stake? Knife? Washington monument?) blade into her exposed abdomen.

Lightning flashes and there is the overwhelming smell of cooking meat, with a pretty strong whiff of rot mixed in. Charlie crabwalks herself backwards, trying not to gag, as the lamia—now a crispy corpse and looking vaguely human again—tips crackingly back onto the floor tiles. The pounding on the door has ceased, but now—without the lamia backed against it—the bathroom door swings open and a face peers in.

"Um." The man says, taking in Charlie, the shattered tile and porcelain, the broken mirrors; the figure of Castiel, head in hand, holding a silver weapon. "Um." His face withdraws a little.   
"I'll give you guys a moment."

An hour later they sit at the booth in the farthest-back corner of the restaurant, picking over the last of their emptied plates. Cas has wiped the memories of the would-be victim, his wife, the restaurant's owner and the other waitress on duty, while Charlie hauled the flaking, crisped corpse out to the dumpster, wrapped up in her raincoat. The memory erasures only added to Cas' already-throbbing head, and between them he and Charlie have gone through two pitchers of water and about eight ibuprofen each. The angel blade is on the table between them. 

"Is this how it always is, afterwards? You and the boys eat burgers and compare battle scars?" Charlie asks finally,wincing as she reaches into her pocket for her wallet. Something tells her Castiel isn't in a position to cover the cheque. 

"I'm not sure." Cas has been gazing across the restaurant; now he draws the blade back across the table, seating it in the inside of his overcoat. "The few hunts I have been on with Sam and Dean were not like this. Usually there is a day or more of reconnaissance around the town, imitating agents from some federal bureau. I have also noticed their propensity for arguing about some point of order in how they proceed upon the hunt. The fight in a potentially public area, that was normal—and now it seemed like the right thing to do, to eat unhealthy foods and brood over some aspect of life that one or the other of us is unhappy with."

"Huh." Charlie drags a fry through the top of her chocolate milkshake. "I wouldn't have pegged the guys for such philosophical types."

"Oh, it's almost never philosophy," Cas turns his attention away from the rest of the restaurant. "Usually it is something along the lines of how Sam wishes to do things his way, or how Dean is a loose cannon, or how neither of them wishes to hunt any more but one of them has a mission that is forcing them to continue. Most often the complaint is that Dean is smothering Sam and being far too overprotective..." 

They're quiet for a moment, and when the silence starts to get awkward Charlie forces herself to chuckle, ignoring the pain in her ribs. "I didn't expect to find the fight waiting for us when we stopped for dinner. I thought I'd be able to flash my FBI badge at least once on this trip."

"The badges are useful," Cas agrees, "but I am just as glad we didn't have to use them."

"There's always next time."

"Of course." A pause, another glance across the restaurant, and then: "Do you feel the need to complain of any of my behavior?"

"Nope," Charlie replies cheerfully. "Must be handy, having a perma-blessed blade with you at all times." 

"It has seen it's fair share of use, yes." 

Charlie slowly gets to her feet, counting out dollars to leave on the table for tip. "If we get moving, we can probably be back at the Bunker before Tuesday."

Cas follows, scanning the room one last time. No, no one is watching them—his memory wipes were thorough, although regrettable—and he is not seeing any hint of demonic or angelic energy. Perhaps this feeling that they've been watched is just post-adrenal paranoia. He grips the handkerchief that's wrapped around the knuckles of his left hand, then, shaking his sore head, follows Charlie out the door. 

+++

 _86'd lamia in Penn_ , Charlie texts Garth. They're pulled over for bathroom-and-snack time at a pretty well-populated rest stop, halfway back to the Bunker, when she remembers that the switchboard werewolf asked for a report once they were on the hunt. 

_Nice work_ , the reply comes fairly quickly. _Can i put ur name on the sched?_

 _Sure,_ she decides after a moment. After all, a girl's gotta have something to do; idle hands, and all that. _Might give me a day or five to heal up first._

They're pulling into the Men of Letters garage when Charlie's phone lights up again: _how do u feel about hauntings?_


	2. Thirty Days Hath September

[Chapter 2: Thirty Days Hath September]

Charlie is pounding away at the canvas-wrapped punching bag, sweat streaming and stinging in her eyes, KC and the Sunshine Band cheering her on via her old and beat up headphones. She knows her form isn't stellar, but her blows are effective—Dorothy saw to that—and the exercise makes her feel like she's doing something, at least. _Unlike soooommmeee people...._

Sam has moved on to sampling the Men of Letters' rather extensive wine cellar in between manic all-nighters with the Archives. He's not eating nearly enough, he's almost never sleeping (and Charlie doesn't count "passing out drunk" as sleeping), and his hygiene is a little less than acceptable at this point. For all that, though, he's not actually looking for a fix for Dean's demonosity; he's looking more and more at things like Armageddon-prepper bunkers and living-off-the-grid websites. So far, nothing he's found can match the Bunker itself for end-of-the-world preparedness, but Sam seems to believe that the only way to survive the inevitable Dean-and-Crowley incursion is to hunker down and try to disappear. 

Kevin's notes are in a crooked pile on one of the kitchen chairs and haven't been looked at once in the last month. Sam's former avenues of study each have their own piles and places on the counters and chairs, and he and Charlie had a pretty decent shouting match that morning when she tried to shift a stack of notes to one side to clear some counter space. _Everything's a dead end_ ,Sam insisted, _and I'm done getting boxed in._

 _What the hell do you call this, then?_ Charlie shouted.

 _This is survival, Charlie, and as good as it's going to get_ , he'd replied, gathering up some of his precious piles, trying to make an exit on that point. Charlie's brain started to burn: Dorothy had been just the same way—so eager to have the last word, the last flash of drama, that she'd storm out of war council meetings with her nose in the air and their supply-line questions not even half-answered. So many Munchkins and Talking Animals deserted or defected when Dorothy's leadership failed to shine through, and so many others lost their lives for the lack of support and supply--

So she'd grabbed Sam's sleeve, and he'd dropped a few of his folders, splashing papers and clippings across the faded green linoleum. And then finally Sam Winchester had raised his voice, matching Charlie notch for notch on volume until they were both turned up to eleven and she was yelling through frustrated tears and he was as close to crying as she'd seen him come in the last four weeks. 

She'd listened, though, and he'd screamed that there was no cure for the Mark of Cain. Dean would have to give it to a willing someone else, who would in their own time turn into a demon, and Dean would go on as a black-eyed, soulless servant of Crowley and, further on, Lucifer Hisownself. 

And so now Charlie throws a right hook, knowing the abused skin on her knuckles is splitting and chafing away under the cotton hand wraps, not really caring. Another message will come in from Garth, she and Cas will leave on another hunt, and for all she knows Sam would be dead by the time they returned from ganking who-knows-what. Maybe then he'd finally be happy.

Dean had told her, over and over again, how he'd made a career out of looking out for Sam. It wasn't just his job; it wasn't what he wanted to do, it was what he was compelled to do, and he...he'd been good at it. Seeing this side of Sam made Charlie appreciate Dean's lifelong devotion to duty all the more.

She hits the bag again. 

+++

"Damn."

Sam doesn't look up from whatever he's reading; Cas can't tell if he's nodded off over his research again, or if he's just ignoring everyone as per usual. The previous morning's shouting match between Sam and Charlie had been the classical Winchester self-loathing and frustration running up against the determined optimism that had gotten Charlie through the end of the Oznian War for Independence. Castiel envied Charlie's short fuse and her ability to erupt in anger at Sam: Cas' own viewpoint was so clouded and tangled with his past associations with Sam and Dean, what they'd all done for and to each other, that if he tried to give voice to the occasional anger he feels, he'd have to take on his angelic form to give the feeling all its proper nuance. 

And now he's out of superglue. That's the third tube this week. 

Piecing the Angel Tablet back together started as a lark to pass the time, and now has turned into Cas' personal quest. Millenia of experience and angelic knowledge tell him that there is a certain ancient Coptic recipe he should use, made of the boiled hooves of sacrificial oxen and the pure white from egrets' eggs and the honey of a hive of bees that polinate only roses—the Angel Tablet can never be made perfect again, but the ancient adhesive will respectfully hold its shards together in the sacred bonds of ....antiquity, he supposes. Instead, Cas is using superglue. It's on hand, it has no need to be chanted over as it boils, and if the Angel Tablet has been broken it's no more sacred now that the average paperweight. Without a Prophet to mend it, superglue is as good as anything else in the Bunker's arsenal.

The phone chirps and both Sam and Cas jump. Cas grabs a reconstructed shard of the Tablet and instantly regrets it, because this was the edge that he'd run out of glue on and what little glue was left is now firmly adhering his palm to the ancient, jagged stone. 

"Damn."

Sam glances at the phone and slides it over to Cas. "For you and...Charlie," he grunts, shutting the notebook and reaching for his laptop. The text from Garth has an alarming number of exclamation points and a lack of actual words. Cas swipes the screen with his left hand—a surprisingly awkward motion—and thinks he's got the gist of the message by the time Charlie appears in the kitchen again. She is drained: sweaty, and smelling of it; all of her anger has gone into the bag.

"How do you feel about wendigo, Chalie?" Cas asks, in what he hopes is a bright and cheerful voice. 

Charlie finishes sucking down the bottle of water from the fridge, then wipes her mouth before answering. "How far north is it?"

"N...Nebraska? I think that says 'Nebraska', " Cas offers her the phone left-handed, and she hesitates a moment. 

"I have nailpolish remover if you want to get that off," she offers, pointing to the his right hand, which may or may not have also been stuck to the table as well as the Tablet fragment. Everyone in the room feels the same momentary loss, the white silence where Dean's joke would have gone. It passes more quickly than it used to.

Charlie checks the phone and frowns. "Not Nebraska—that's 'North Dakota'. And I think this is 'werewolf', not 'wendigo'."

"Shouldn't be;" Sam says sudenly. "Garth shouldn't need help with werewolves."

"Maybe he's got too many puppies to housetrain?" Charlie almost immediately regrets the joke and it's undeniable weakness.

"Let's drive north and find out. If you'd like to clean up," Cas offers, "I'll load up the Frog and we can be on our way."

Charlie pauses at the door. "Wanna come with, Sam?"

He almost says yes; she can see it in his face before the mask of resignation descends again. But he doesn't, and despite her throbbing knuckles, that ticks her off again.

 

\+ + + +

 

"See, wolves have a mating season," Garth explains, heaving an overturned table upright again. It wobbles: one leg has been partially chewed off. "Humans, on the other hand, don't. Humans can mate pretty much any time, but wolves aren't built that way. You've got two competing systems that weren't ever meant to reconcile! And so--" he gestures widely at the destruction around them. 

It was like _Teen Wolf_ meets _Teenage Wasteland_ : there isn't a stick of furniture in the house that hadn't been clawed, chewed or outright destroyed. The three windows had been boarded up three or four times apiece (to judge by the splintered plywood remains that swung from nails embedded in the window frame) and jagged chunks of glass stuck out from the interior. Claw marks had sliced across the wallpaper in more than a few places. The carpet is...Cas wasn't sure there had even ever been carpet. And there is fur....everywhere.

The animal-musk smell is enough to make an angel sneeze, and he does, again.Garth only grins at him, looking more feral than Cas is strictly comfortable with: the rank odor of werewolf mating season has to be affecting him, too, but Garth has already assured them, eight times, that his own 'rebirth' as a werewolf was far enough past puberty for him to remain aloof from the wanton....wantonness...of the whole scene. 

There are two fourteen-year-old semi-human boys on the floor of the room, heavily duct taped at wrists, ankles, knees and elbows. One of them squirms and yips behind the tape; the other has been tranquilized with whatever Garth's friend Nathalie had in the bed of her pickup truck. Nathalie is, apparently, a Hunter who works fairly often with Garth's blended, extended werewolf family, and when the Coralling of the Horny Teenaged Werewolves started going downhill, he'd called her. 

Thus, the hog-taped boys. Puberty has hit them hard and Charlie does pity them (trying hard not to look at them below the beltline, but _damn_ their jeans must be getting pretty tight by now), but she only needed to see Garth humped by his own nephew once, and will need a gallon of eyebleach to never see that again. 

"So what else do you need from us?" Charlie asks, side-eying a recently-upright chair and wondering if she needs to blacklight-test it before sitting down. 

"Well, we've got 'em to stop humping stuff," Garth muses, "and s'long as we can keep 'em crated till this full moon cycle is over, we shouldn't have any more issues with the human sides of 'em. We'll cage 'em in the basement next month just for safety's sake but their season should be up after this wboeekend."

"That's...all?" Cas is more than a little incredulous. "You crate them until they calm down and ...that's it? It seems a little too simple."

"Yup yup," Nathalie chimes in. She is not short, but she's rather squarish, with burnt-umber skin and hair, freckles and hazel eyes. "If they were real puppies we'd be looking to neuter them pretty soon, but we can't exactly do that to people. And we can't just let them loose til they calm down because they won't: they'll get off the farm, into town, and on top of the first person they come across. And werewolf mating isn't something most humans would survive." She casts a knowing look at Garth, whose born-again-ness is close enough to the surface that he blushes. She laughs. "Lotsa teeth, lotsa claws, and this thing they call _knotting_ \--"

"Aaaand who wants lemonade, huh?" Garth interrupts loudly, clapping his hands. Nathalie chuckles and kneels for her duffel bag, prepping another tranquilizer for the still-squirming twin. "Charlie! Wanna help me grab refreshments from the kitchen? I'm sure Cas and Nat here can take care of getting the boys in crates."

Charlie follows him down to the kitchen, more than a little disappointed: it was an eighteen-hour drive from the Bunker to Garth's place in North Dakota, just to help wrestle some horny teenaged werewolves into dog crates. They'd gotten in at nine that morning, and it was barely three in the afternoon. 

As soon as they are out of the room, Nathalie slides over to Castiel. "So you're ...flying solo, huh?"

"Excuse me?" He knows an angel joke when he hears one, but oh, Cas is sick of angel jokes. 

"Most angels I meet have been going in pairs," Nathalie has a very direct gaze: her hazel eyes are very bright in her dusky face. "And Charlie's nice enough, but she's no angel. So what happened to your co-pilot?"

"You've met a lot of angels, then?" Cas watches the tranquilizer take effect on the twin, noting how his breathing slows and deepens, and how his thrashing quiets down to sleeping-dog-twitches. Together the two Hunters make quick work of removing the tape on his limbs . He takes hold of the boy's taped ankles, nodding at Nathalie to grab his shoulders. 

"I meet a fair few, my line of work," she replies with a grunt, heaving the boy up with well-practiced strenghth. Garth introduced her as "a country vet, of sorts"; Cas supposes this means she is used to moving large, sedated mammals around when the need strikes. The boy is deposited with some care into a crate—an actual wooden _caution live animals_ shipping crate, with airholes, reinforced walls and a lid to be secured with screws—and Nathalie squeezes two quick-clamps over the edges of the lid to hold it while she digs two battery-operated screwguns from her duffel bag. She hands one to Cas, along with a handful of wood screws, and they set to securing the lid of the boy's crate. 

"Never met an angelic Hunter, though," Nathalie continues, as though Cas hadn't masterfully deflected the question more than five minutes ago. He busies himself checking the connection between the crate and the metal grate on the front, but now Nathalie is staring at him, expecting a reply.

"I fell in with a pair of Hunters a few years ago," Cas says, choosing his words carefully, "and so did Charlie. The other two aren't in the business any more, so Charlie and I are trying to pick up some of the slack."

"A pair of Hunters." Nathalie is quiet; luckily, so is the other teenaged werewolf, whom Cas would be more than happy to be putting into the second crate rather than spooling out his life's story. "I don't suppose one of them Hunters would be a Mister Bobby Singer, would he?"

"Friends of his, but no, not Bobby." Cas moves, rather pointedly, over to start un-taping the second boy's ankles, but Nathalie shakes her head. 

"Can't crate 'em in the same room; they'll go nuts trying to break their crates open to get at each other," she says, again moving to lift the boy by the shoulders. He moans a bit, but doesn't waken when Cas takes his ankles. 

"Were you friends with Bobby?" Cas asks, just to be polite, as they maneuver the other boy into the adjacent bedroom. There is another crate, and the decor has been equally torn up, although the walls are mostly intact. 

"E'ryone was friends with Bobby," Nathalie chuckles, heaving the boy into the crate. She doles out the screws and they start securing the lid. "Nah, he's the last one I knew of lately to have, um, quit the business, so you speak, and just wondered."

Charlie and Garth are back with drinks: glass bottles of soda, with smears of dust still on the bottles to show how deep into the cold cellar they had to go to find them. There is cleaning up to do, and that takes most of the afternoon; on the way out of the mostly-decimated bedrooms, Nathalie fishes a pair of rawhides out of her duffel and pushes one through the front of each crate. Garth will be back at sundown with food and water for the boys, who will by then be turning into adolescent pups in their crates. It is best if everyone else leaves before their transitions start; Garth's family will be by soon enough to help him keep watch, now that they know what their youngest pups have been up to. 

Nathalie, for her part, hugs Charlie and Cas both, tossing Charlie a gas card for their help before climbing into her old pickup and driving away. Garth promises to keep more jobs coming, as long as they're interested, and waves from the end of the driveway until the Chocolate Frog has turned down the road and out of sight. 

They have stopped for food at the Dakotas border: Charlie has a chicken salad and a milkshake, and Cas has returned to the old standby of tomato soup and grilled cheese. There isn't much to talk about after this job, and Charlie is commiting the fashionable faux-pas of browsing Facebook on her phone when a text message pops up on her screen:

_Knew y'all looked familiar. Hope you don't mind G gave me your number. --Nat_

_No, no problem._ Charlie replies, and then: _We're familiar, huh?_

Instead of a text reply, there is a photo. Charlie stares at it long enough for Castiel to break out of his tomato-soup reverie and ask what's wrong; to answer, she shows him the screen .

In the picture, three figures stand by a brush-covered bank on an overcast day. Charlie is easily identified by her vibrant red hair as she tiptoes up to hug an equally obvious figure: Sam, called out by his sheer vertical height and shampoo-commercial hair. Dean, bowlegged and holding a duffel bag, stands off to one side. 

The perspective on the photo is as from dozens of yards away, and across the road from what Charlie knows instantly as one of the incognito exits to the Bunker. It's too good to have been taken with a phone camera, and as soon as they're back in the Frog Charlie will be sure-as-shit downloading it to her laptop and finding out as much background data as possible on the camera itself, the timestamp, the GPS tag...almost none of which was necessary. This was the second-to-last time she'd seen the boys, when Dean had convinced her to let her mom off of life support, the time before she'd followed Dorothy to Oz. 

This was _years_ ago.

 _Is this a threat?_ Charlie finally texts a reply.

_I don't threaten. This is just a heads-up. I won't be the one coming for you._


	3. Twenty-Twenty

"What the hell does that mean?" The notebook rockets across the kitchen, hitting the opposite door frame spine-first and ejecting several post-it notes of varying colors before it flutters to the linoleum with a splat. Sam presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, muttering blandishments to himself: he'll have to put Kevin's notes back in order; none of this makes sense; did Kevin even know what he was writing? 

This was so. Fucking. Useless. 

That was the main point. It was the idea that kept him reaching for another beer, as though a swig would clear his head, make him see that the search wasn't pointless, that there was some way he could work around his brother coming to kill him. 

Oh look: another beer. 

He already knew that there was no way to remove the Mark. Unless Dean found someone else willing to take it, he'd have it for the rest of eternity, and to keep him from dying, the Mark had made Dean into a demon—and not just any demon, but a Knight of Hell, which meant he could be dismembered, disemboweled, burned, and buried in cement, but he couldn't be killed. Cas' Angel Blade wouldn't work, and neither would the long-forgotten Colt. The only way of ending Dean's damned life would be for him to transfer the Mark and then the new Mark-bearer would have to kill him with the First Blade. 

If Dean weren't the bearer of the Mark, if it was some other poor bastard, or even Crowley, then the Bunker might have been enough protection. The Men of Letters had only slipped up when Abbadon had posessed her human host and infiltrated their sanctuary; without that, Abbaddon would have never gotten past the protection spells, traps, wardings, and sigils that protected the Men of Letters' HQ. Dean, however, _was_ the bearer, and knew ways around or through every single demonic and blessed booby-trap in the Bunker. Sam still can't believe his brother hasn't burned the place to the ground yet. 

OK, no way to remove it, no real way to protect against it, and no way of rendering it inert: even chopping Dean's arm off wouldn't remove the curse, and chances were that as a demon he could either grow the arm back or reattach it at his leisure. Holy oil-fire wouldn't burn it off. God Himself had apparently put the Mark on Cain, which meant that apparently, only God Hisownself could take it back, and previous dealings with Heaven had led the Winchesters to believe that God was either dead or really, really didn't care to get involved. 

"How the hell did we get here, Kevin?" Sam murmurs, leaning his forehead against the tabletop. He feels feverish, and the tabletop is nice and cool. He should probably eat something. Maybe take a shower. His mouth tastes like beer and socks. Last time he went to the bathroom his piss smelled like it was straight out of the bottle and just made him want another beer. Once upon a time he'd been a stickler for drinking the recommended 8 glasses of water per day; now he can't remember the last time he had water that wasn't fizzy and yellow. 

Kevin had been like this, towards the end, with the Angel Tablet, only with hot dogs and ibuprofen: single-minded, driven, and smelling like....Sam coughs a little, and the reflection of his breath off the table top makes him gag. He jerks up in his seat, scrubbing his face with his hands. 

_How did we get here, Kevin_? His eyelids feel like sandpaper. Kevin was a Prophet, driven by his divine destiny to finish the translation of the Tablets. Sam, on the other hand....Sam is a failure, a disgrace, a loser who _smells horrible_ and hasn't actually eaten for a couple days. He's a shut-in, a hopeless nerd who keeps running in circles and slamming into the same damn walls over and over again. One of these times he'd break his neck. Wouldn't that be nice. 

_How did we_

It's such a long line. Such a long line of screwups and sticking their damn Winchester noses where their damn Winchester noses didn't belong. Metatron would've stayed hidden in New Mexico if Sam and Dean hadn't gone looking to translate the Tablet...if Cas had just left them after bringing Dean back, he wouldn't have been around for Metatron to steal his grace...if they hadn't been so stubborn in chasing crossroads demons they'd've never gotten tangled up with Crowley...they could have stayed small-time. White Ladies and wendigos and werewolves. Cheap motels and fast food. Duffel bags and the Impala and Dean sticking a spoon in his mouth whenever he dozed off in the passenger seat. No angels. No demons. No vessels or marks or Knights of Hell. 

What goddamn business was it of theirs, trying to open or close the gates of hell or heaven? In what reality had that ever seemed like a good idea? 

Angels. That's where they went wrong: angels. Dean hadn't even believed and then Castiel had ridden his ass out of Hell and back into the waking world. Before the angels they were local hunters, living on goodwill, fast food and credit card fraud. If Cas hadn't stepped in...

...if Sam had just salted and burned Dean the _first_ time, like he shoulda, like a Hunter shoulda....

 _Dad's on a hunting trip, and he hasn't been back for a few days._ Shoulda tossed his ass back on the street. Shoulda slammed the door and locked it and gone on to that freakin Stanford interview. Shoulda cut ties completely. Shoulda woulda coulda. Sam rolls his head around on his neck, feeling the vertebrae strain and crack. His neck muscles feel like undercooked pasta. He's been sitting too long. Sam the Lawyer. Sam Winchester, Esquire. He'd be making six figures by now and someone else would be washing his sheets and picking up after him. Well, minus the six figures that's what hotel life on the road had been like, hadn't it?

_How_

Dean wouldn't be a demon if he didn't have the Mark to defeat Abbaddon to challenge Crowley who escaped the last of the Trials to close the Gates of Hell with the Demon Tablet and Castiel would be an angel if he didn't lose his grace to Metatron to close Heaven and the Angel Tablet. That was it. That's how we got here, Kevin. We tried too much. We're human. We're small-time. We had no business messing with Prophets or Metatrons or Angels or Gates. Shoulda never. Sam taps his head on a cupboard, lightly at first, but then with increasing force. Shoulda never shoulda never shoulda never shoulda never bang shoulda never _bang_ shoulda never **_bang_ BANG**

_Never_

Somehow he's under the showerhead and the water is scalding and the pressure is like a firehose. Good. Can't imagine how many layers of dead skin and old sweat and funk he's gotta scrub off. Hasn't shaved in days. Teeth feel like sweaters. In hindsight, both things he could have also done in the shower.   
In  
hindsight. 

And Sam suddenly remembers being flung back in time: the touch of an angelic finger and suddenly he was in the wild west, losing his blackberry and talking to Samuel Colt. How simple. How stupid and fucking simple. 

He just needs Castiel to come home and send him back in time.


	4. On Wednesdays We Wear Trenchcoats

There are so few of them who will talk to him anymore. Cas isn't sure if they've just given up on him, or are busy with some other task, but it takes hours of prayer for even one angel to deign to answer, and that's usually with some version of "we don't want to tell you. Maybe try again later."

Still, Cas feels he has to thank someone when he and Charlie return from North Dakota to find that the kitchen has been cleaned up—again--and that this miracle has extended to the previously-denuded Stacks and Archives, as well. Sam, too, is showered, shaved, and apparently making an effort to ingest things that might actually be good for him. Though it's not at all possible that Sam simply decided to become a functioning human again, as he and Cas exchange a brief hug, Castiel is deeply grateful that he's finally remembered how soap works. 

Charlie is also wary of this sudden sea-change, and is more reserved; she is also, as she put it in the car, "incredibly freaked the fuck out by the idea that the North Dakota veterinary paparazzi have taken an interest" in she and the Winchesters. Charlie, Cas has recently learned, will persevorate on small details when she can't actively fix them: hence, a sixteen-hour circular discussion, broken only for pit stops and when Cas had to feign napping just so Charlie could concentrate on driving for a couple hours. There have been no further texts from Nathalie, and she won't pick up when Charlie tries to actually call her. Garth has insisted, across five different phone calls, that Nathalie is "good people" and probably meant no actual harm by the warning. 

There is actual food in the fridge: milk, with an expiration date that is actually in the future; bread, baked and not in a bottle; peanut butter, apples....basic stuff, yeah, but almost none of it is beer or ketchup, and for that Charlie is willing to come out of her paranoia cloud to smile. She makes peanut butter toast and Castiel puts on the coffee pot while Charlie fills Sam in on the particulars of their trip. 

Of course Sam asks to see the photo, and says almost the same thing she'd thought at first: "Charlie, this picture is a couple years old. Wouldn't an actual threat come with something a little more...recent?"

"She doesn't threaten, she says, see?" Charlie swipes to the next message. "I don't know what else that leaves, but she says it's not a threat."

"I think she's making two separate statements, Charlie," Cas puts in, stirring three or four tablespoons of sugar into his coffee. "First one is, 'I don't threaten'. Then, full stop, return-return, paragraph begins: 'This is a heads-up. I won't be the one coming for you'."

"Okay, okay, but...why send this picture, now? Why send it at all?" Charlie demands, spraying crumbs across the table. Sam, in his newfound fastidiousness, scrapes them to the side with the edge of a piece of paper. 

"Well, she asked if I knew Bobby Singer. She also knew I was an angel," Cas remembers. "I assumed Garth told her, but if she'd been observing the Winchesters then it's possible he didn't need to tell her."

"I think she's trying to warn you," Sam decides, pinching the picture out to examine some of the details. "She knows that you've worked with us before, Charlie, and Cas, Garth probably told her that you're around us a lot. It's not hard to guess that you guys came together through mutual friends, and if your friends are the Winchesters...."

"She's saying you guys are dangerous." Charlie absentmindedly scrubs her palms on her jeans.

"We've gotten a lot of people killed," Sam agrees, and Charlie can actually see his head droop lower, as though the vengeful spirit of Eeyore is reasserting itself over him after a brief, hygiene-fueled absence. Charlie clocks him in the shoulder a good one, and he rears up, surprised.

"No more of that, mister sad-moose," she scolds. "I like showered Sammy. No going back to depressed, unshowered Sammy. This job is dangerous. Everyone who's ...they all knew that going in. Especially Bobby. _And especially Dean._ "

Instead of the tears she expected, however, Sam's face splits into a wide grin. "About that," he says, and pushes his chair back. "I think I know how to fix everything."

"Wait, what? What do you mean, everything?" Charlie narrows her eyes in suspicion. _Please don't let him start telling us about the latest developments in assisted-suicide technologies...._ she begged silently.

"I mean _everything_ , Charlie-- _everything_ from the Mark of Cain to the falling angels to Castiel's grace to _Dean_ , Charlie. I know how I can fix this."

He gazes at both of them, enthusiasm flagging: Charlie is staring at Sam in disbelief; Castiel, on the other hand, is leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, glowering.

"Cas, you just have to send me back in time."

Castiel sighs. "Sam--"

"It's worked before! You sent _both_ of us, Dean and I, back to the eighteen-hundreds to get the phoenix ash from Samuel Colt! I'm just asking for one person, just me, and send me eight months back. Just far enough back that we can stop Dean from taking the Mark--"

"Sam."

"—and we'll just wash our hands of the whole Abbaddon thing, let Crowley deal with it--"

"Sam."

"—it'll _work_ , Castiel, don't you get it? All we have to do is get Cain to kill Abbaddon instead of Dean and then none of this stuff with, with Metatron and Gadreel and Kevin will have ever--"

" _Sam I'm not an angel anymore!_ " Castiel thunders out, and Sam finally stops. "Metatron took my grace, remember? Without that, I have no access to the powers you're asking for. I'm just...I'm the memory of Castiel, bound in the body of, of Jimmy Novak. I used to sell insurance and then I used to work at a gas station. I can't send you back in time."

"Time travel is...it's a thing?" Charlie squeaks from the corner of the table. Sam had almost forgotten about her. This plan had been a hot-air balloon in his chest, raising his head above water for the first time in what felt like forever, letting him finally look up and see a path out of this stupid mess. And with one little reminder, that one statement, Castiel had shoved a pin in his balloon and the weight of reality was going to collapse his chest. 

"It is, after a fashion," Cas explains quietly, and goes on to list the number of times Sam and Dean—mostly Dean—had traveled through the years. "But the intended outcome is almost never the actual effect," Castiel finishes, pointedly, in Sam's direction. "Aside from the phoenix ash, circumstances have almost always aligned to leave the present unchanged, no matter what Sam or Dean does in the past." 

"Okay, so your mojo is gone; who else would be able to do this?" Charlie steamrolls over Castiel's last statement. This is a plan. This is a thing, a _good_ thing, and seeing Sam light up like a Christmas tree at the idea of having a solution—she'll run this one into the ground if it keeps her surviving Winchester out of the Pits of Despair. 

Cas sighs, and glares at her, but answers: "Another angel, one in full use of their powers, would be able to accomplish the time travel. There are certain spells that _were_ known to the Men of Letters, but from what I understand they were lost when the headquarters in Illinois was destroyed." 

"Okay, so...Sam and I will search here, to see if there are records of these spells, or clues or whatever," Charlie juts out her chin. "Can you get in touch with other angels?"

"In theory, yes, but...they seem disinclined to talk to me."

"What, just because you lost your magic?"

"It's grace, not magic, and yes...among other things. But..." Both Sam and Charlie are looking at him with unalloyed hope. _Puppy eyes_ , Cas thinks, and heaves another sigh. "Look, I'll try, all right? That's all I can do. But I'll try."

++++

The Bunker is warded—Cas counted, once—twenty-seven ways to Sunday against angels, specifically, so trying to contact his holy former bretheren from within its walls would be futile. Instead he takes his own butterscotch-colored station wagon about twenty miles down the road to the nearest hospital, which happens to have a chapel attached. And there, Castiel prays. He prays in English, in Latin, in Aramaic and Arabic, in Enochian and Hebrew. He prays for a week, stopping only once a day for meals in the hospital cafeteria. The staff believe he's praying for his wife, or his daughter, in the ICU. The chaplain lays a hand on his shoulder in passing, and there are times when she does not want to approach him: he radiates fear, or anger, or utter dejection. 

Behind his closed eyelids, Castiel is in a trance: it is a human's trance, yearning for the divine, but not reaching it. He is open, and calling out to his siblings. Heaven knows he has nothing real to offer in exchange, but he asks anyways. He calls, and calls, and calls. 

On the eighth day he gets an answer. 

"All right, brother." The _impression_ of fluttering feathers accompanies the voice, and from far away Castiel can hear the pew behind him creak as a body suddenly settles into the seat. 

"Ingrid," he breathes, feeling his mind resettle into his body. His throat feels like sandpaper and his eyelids seem stuck together, but after a moment Castiel is able to make himself turn around to look at the angel behind him.

Ingrid has borrowed the body of one of the nursing staff for this conversation: her nametag reads "Parvati" and she appears to be in her late 50s. Cas has to bite back the begnnings of a lecture regarding possessing unwilling hosts and using humans as taxicabs. He needs to make Ingrid help him, not drive her away.

"I'd have come yesterday, but, you know: day of rest and all that," she offers, settling herself more comfortably on the pew. "You've been a singularly dedicated little penitent. What is it that you want?"

"Ingrid. Thank you for coming. I need—I need a favor."

"I guessed as much. What is it that you want?" she repeats, looking mildly annoyed.

"I need--" Cas sighs, scrubbing his face with his hands. "I need someone to help me send Sam Winchester back into the past." 

Ingrid makes a horrible face. "Time travel? How gauche. That's a terrible favor to ask for. I'm disappointed, brother."

"Sam thinks that if he can go back in time he can change things that have led up to the Mark of Cain appearing on his brother's arm, and thus save him from eternity as a Knight of Hell." 

Ingrid says nothing, only stares at him. After a moment, she says, "...and?"

Cas flounders. "...And I could use an angel's help to send him back?"

"Castiel." Ingrid's tone is pure disappointment. "Unless there is some clear benefit to Heaven, there is absolutely no way the Divine Host is getting involved with you and the Winchesters. Again. There have been wars, Castiel, as a direct result of their meddling in affairs that are _way_ above their paygrade or yours! We have only just gotten Heaven functional again, no thanks to your precious Winchesters. And now you want them to meddle in the timeline? No, brother, no," Ingrid shakes her head an her host's salt-and-pepper hair falls loose from it's clip, "and no. This thing, we will not do."

"Ingrid, please!" Cas makes a grab for the sleeve of her scrub shirt as she stands, and the angel stares at him for a moment, shocked by the uncouthness of his gesture. "Please, sister," he repeats, settling back in his pew, "there are untold consequences for the mortal realm once Dean Winchester and Crowley put forth whatever plan they're coming up with now. Millions of souls lost, sister, and that's not just here. Dean Winchester has been to Purgatory; he knows the wealth of souls imprisoned there. It is only a matter of time before he and Crowley free those souls and make an assault on Heaven. After these wars, are you sure that your numbers are sufficient to turn them back?"

Ingrid narrows her eyes at him. "You're only guessing."

"It's an educated guess. How many years have I been working with the Winchesters? How often have I come up against Crowley? What better time to storm the Gates than when you're weak, still fractured, and the mortal realm has just lost one of its greatest weapons against Hell?"

Ingrid tilts her head, suddenly, and Cas can _almost_ hear the chime of Angel Radio. So the Host has been eavesdropping, he thinks grimly, but schools his expression to hopefulness when Ingrid holds up one hand. 

...Suddenly she's gone, and her vessel sways a bit on her feet. Cas stands quickly, helping her ease into the pew. "Oh man," she says, blinking rapidly. Then she frowns, and looks around, and looks at her watch. "What...How did I get--"

A shaft of white light slams down into her from the ceiling, glowing through her eyes and open mouth as Ingrid returns. Cas lowers his hands slowly, blinking away the afterimages of the angelic presence. 

"The Host has a proposal for you, Castiel," Ingrid states, and Cas knows that she doesn't approve of what she's about to offer. "We will grant you the return of your Heavenly Powers and the means to remove your friend Dean Winchester from the grasp of the King of Hell." And she holds out a small crystalline vial. 

Inside is a swirl of glowing blue smoke. The glow pulses, faintly, like a heartbeat.

"My grace," Cas whispers.

"No, not yours." Ingrid closes the vial in her hand again, and Cas' heart breaks a little. "This is the grace of the criminal Metatron. He retains enough to remain alive within the prison in Heaven to which he has been sentenced, but without the rest--" she gives the vial a little shake, "he is mortal, and much less of a security risk. This, you may have," and she offers the vial again. 

Cas wants to reach for it, but doesn't. "What's the catch?"

"Catch?"

"What do you expect from me in return?"

Ingrid quirks an eyebrow. "Metatron's grace will be sufficient for you to send Sam Winchester back in time, but you must return him to the point prior to the conclusion of Metatron's spell, the spell that locked the rest of the Host out of Heaven. Do you prevent this, and the subsequent Angelic War, you will regain your own grace. Indeed, you will never have lost it in the first place."

Cas still will not reach for the vial. "And?"

She smiles: all teeth, no humor. "And you will owe us a favor. You will remember this throughout the changes in the timeline, whatever they may be, and we will call upon you to redeem this favor at the time of our choosing. Do you agree?"

Cas keeps his hands in his coat pockets. "What sort of favor?"

Ingrid shrugs. "Who knows? Much is dependent upon the state of Heaven after you circumvent Metatron's coup. Rest assured, brother, that you will have far fewer concerns on Earth if you succeed in changing the timeline."

Far fewer concerns on Earth...the return of his own grace...his powers, his wings, and oh, he's missed teleporting. No tedious hours of his rapidly-dwindling mortal life spent in the car with Charlie, just _pop_ there and back again. And would Charlie still be here? What about her time in Oz? Would Dean have stopped Sam from completing the Three Trials--

"Your answer, Castiel?"

Cas locks eyes with Ingrid, then slowly, reverently, reaches for the vial.


	5. Bloody Grindstone

Charlie is awake early enough in the morning to see Castiel off to...where ever it is he's going. He needs to contact Angel Radio, he says, and to do that, he needs a quiet place to pray. Charlie waves as the Bunker's main door closes and seals itself shut, like a bank vault. She makes coffee, and more toast, and then retrieves her laptop from her bedroom: time to shove her nose onto the grindstone of Men of Letters spellwork records. 

Sam joins her about an hour later (Charlie glares at him hard until he puts the beer he'd retrieved back in the fridge, and pours himself a cup of coffee instead), choosing to hunt down an impressive stack of scrapbook-style archive rolls and page through them, following the cross-references in the margins to try to hunt down the time-travel spells his grandfather used. Around midday Charlie heats up some soup and Sam makes passable sandwiches, and they eat while researching. Charlie feels a pang of regret when her phone dings with a request from Garth, but it's only a rumor of a rugaru family near Fargo. _Sorry, bud, stuck in research mode for a few days,_ she texts back, thinking (but not adding) that she's sure _Nathalie_ can help handle flesh-eaters, if they are at all. 

Thus, the pattern of the next several days: eat, sleep, drink lots of coffee, and research. Sam will sometimes share the table she's using in the Archives, but there are a lot of times when he disappears back into the Stacks and Charlie suspects that he's fighting off the inevitable result of drinking a lot, for a long time, and then suddenly trying to get a body to remember how to process real food and water. His hands shake less and less as the weekend approaches. 

For a while, it seems like Henry Winchester's spell is going to be their golden ticket, if Castiel's prayers go unanswered. They find a copy of the spell and a list of necessary components, but Charlie's growing file on what she calls (for lack of a better term) the "physics" of spellcasting indicate that the spell is more of a fast-forward button: it can only move a person into the future. It's a powerful fast-forward button, too; the minimum distance in time that it's capable of moving someone is five years. Sam suggests, half-joking, that they simply send themselves forward to a point where they've resolved their current problem. Charlie spends an enjoyable hour lecturing him on why this popular sci-fi trope is, of course, impossible. 

"Well, if we know how spellcasting works, what's to stop us from coming up with our own, brand-new spell?" Sam asks, gesturing to Charlie's laptop and the spreadsheet she's made to track words, gestures, and spell components. (And who says Dming half a dozen D&D campaigns at a time isn't great organizational training?) "We could base it on an existng spell and work outwards from there. What do you think?"

Charlie's spreadsheet tracks spells by 5 categories: structure, power, components, focus, and cost. Structure dictates how the spell was supposed to be set up (diagrams on the floor, dances in the woods under a full mood, ritual sacrifice, and so on), and power dictates how many practitioners would be needed to get the spell completed. Focus is where the spell is directed: at an individual or group; at a weather system or a physical feature of the landscape; towards mortals or immortal beings. And cost counts just that: will the caster need to sacrifice and animal to succeed at casting the spell? What about his life-force? What about one of his limbs or eyes? 

Henry Winchester's spell was structured as a triggered sigil—needing the touch of its caster to activate it. A single caster was needed to complete it, and the focus was in the future; components included several esoteric oils, the caster's own blood, and the saliva of a tortoise, the longer-lived the better. As for cost? The caster could never return to his or her own time. The energy of their passage through the years literally burned through time behind him, cauterizing and sealing the hole they made in the timeline. 

"If we were to come up with our own...and I am _not saying_ that that is a good idea...well, ok, structurally, how do the angels do it?"

"Um." Sam rubs his forehead with the heel of one hand. "Cas comes up and puts his thumb between your eyes and pushes. Then you're in another time and if you're Dean, you don't have to poop for a week."

Charlie giggles, and tries not to feel the squeeze of regret in her chest. "Sounds like another triggered sigil." She fills in the field in her spreadsheet, fingers flying over the keyboard. "I'm guessing the angels get to bypass the actual drawing-of-the-sigil bit, which means they've got both power and focus sewn up. For us to achieve that kind of energy, we'd need....twenty or thirty people, at least, all thinking about the same thing."

"Yeah, and our luck, there'd be a Staypuff Marshmallow Man in there somewhere," Sam points out grimly.

"Well, that's secondary to the big problem. Do you have twenty-five people you know and trust with something like this?" Charlie asks. "Cuz I've got maybe three, myself, and two of those are you and Cas and I'm the third one."

Sam hesitates, then shakes his head. "No, you're right. We'd never get that kind of strength up." He chews on his lower lip for a moment. "What about...sending a message back? Something small, or eve something like a dream? Can we warn ourselves that way?"

"Would it work?" Charlie asks bluntly. "If a letter from someone who claims to be yourself in the future, if that shows up here, what are you gonna think? You'll think, oh, someone knows about this place. I gotta cut and run. You're not going to stop to wonder if you really did send yourself a note."

"And yet we're still here." Sam shuts his laptop and leans over towards Charlie. "You're not insisting we pull up stakes, and its been days since that Nathalie sent you the recon picture that freaked you out. In fact, you haven't even mentioned it since Cas left. What's up? I thought you were going to go out of your head, worrying about it."

"Notice how I haven't set foot outside the Bunker since we got back," Charlie replies, then sighs. "To be honest, I haven't thought much about it. So much happened between that picture getting taken and now—and then a bunch of stuff happened when we found out about it, and through all that, here we are, relatively safe in our hobbit-hole of occult learning."

"So you're cool with it?"

"No, I wouldn't say that. I'm still gonna freak out about it. But this--" she gestures to the stacks of notes and piles of books on their long table, "this takes precedence, by a long shot. And if something like this works, who's to say the picture will even matter in the end?"

"Can we go back to that 'a bunch of stuff happening between then an now' that you mentioned?" Sam asks, and Charlie knows what's coming next. She frowns, concentrating, trying to use her Jedi mind control powers to stop him from asking; unfortunately, as always, they don't work. "Charlie, why did you come back from Oz?"

 _It might not matter later, so might as well tell him now,_ she thinks. "We lost the war," Charlie answers bluntly. "Dottie and I, we tried to unite all the disenfranchised factions of Oz against the tyranny of the Emerald City, and we lost. We lost big-fat-freaking-time."

"Dorothy seemed so confident when she was here," Sam muses.

"Yeah, and she was. The war had barely started. She had maybe a dozen small groups of insurgents, all subsisting on the barest hint of direction from her and doing what they wanted to do, all with the same general goal. But getting the Talking Animals and the Munchkins and the Constructs to all work together, when they'd been told for hundreds of years that they were each others' enemies? It seemed impossible. It _was_ impossible." 

Sam only gives her a blank look, so she tugs her hands through her hair, sighs, and shuts her own laptop. "See, Oz has one powerful minority group: the Oznians, the humans, although they're not, not quite. The Wizard leads them all from the Emerald City, and there are four other Cities allied with them. The majority of the occupants of Oz are either Talking Animals, like the Lion, or Constructs, like the Scarecrow and TinMan. The Munchkins are the minority among the majority: they don't have the numbers that the Animals and the Constructs have, but they're still a bigger population than the Oznians. The Munchkins also live in clans, and some of those clans trade with the Oznians, and some do business with the Animals, and some do business with the Constructs. And the Contsructs hate the Animals, and the Animals don't all like the Munchkins, and the Munchkins don't always get along with the Animals..."

"You had to try to fuse them all into an army," Sam supplies. Charlie lays one finger along her nose and points at him with her other hand. 

"They saw Dorothy's cell—her, Tinman, Scarecrow, Lion, and Toto—as an ideal example, and since she looked like an Oznian, they followed what they'd been socialized to do, and obeyed her orders. Trouble is that Dorothy never played Risk when she was a kid."

"She couldn't manage more than one aspect of a campaign?"

"Right again, Sammy-O. She loved the look of being a General, but she had no idea how to use her troops. Couldn't be bothered with concerns about supply or shelter; had no idea which groups could fight alongside each other and which ones couldn't. More than once we had little wars on the side, Munchkin clans fighting each other, or the Talking Horses getting lured into the swamps around Emerald City by the Crocodiles. The Constructs hated working with any of us, because they thought they were built and designed so much better—and yet as soon as someone started rusting, or a joint needed replacing, the quartermasters were supposed to drop everything to fix their malfunctions." Charlie rubbed her eyes. 

"And Dorothy saw none of it. She loved making dramatic exits from war council meetings, leaving us with empty maps or overturned battle plans. I had to try to smooth things over with the Munchkin clan heads and the Talking Animals who bothered to send delegates. We started losing support, clans breaking away, herds and packs just disappearing into the wilds."  
Charlie is quiet for a moment, staring at the tabletop. Then: "The last time I saw any of 'em was the day Toto left."

"Toto? You mean—Dorothy's dog? Little Toto?"

"Sure, little dog from the movie. Only he wasn't. Toto was a sheepdog mutt, a farm dog, big old bastard. He hadn't quite started talking by the time I left, but the longer an animal is in Oz, the smarter they get, the closer they get to Talking. Toto wasn't a puppy anymore when they crossed over, so I guess the process took a little longer. But the Talking Animals went to him as their spokesma—spokes-dog, and he did what he could for them and for Dorothy. The final War Council meeting, Toto delivered an ultimatum, making it clear that the remainder of the Wolves and Lions were going to leave if Dorothy didn't plan a direct assault on the Emerald City. She thought she'd put 'em in their place, and she ordered them to cover our retreat from the Poppy Plains back East, towards Ruby City." Charlie pauses. "They didn't. Toto and the Wolves—they broke for the Glass Mountains, to the East, and the Lions stayed camped in the Poppies. The rest of the Animals were gone before the week was out. Dorothy was all bluff and bravado, saying they'd regroup at the Witch's old tower in the West, get new allies. As far as I know, only Tinman stuck with her that far. Everyone else scattered."

"Wow." Sam says after a moment. He can picture the scale of the conflict, and it's nothing that Judy Garland ever prepared him for. "Wow. So you took the Key and came back?"

"Yep. It'd been six years in Oz; barely eighteen months here." Charlie shakes her head. "I feel so old sometimes, Sammy."

"Trust me, kiddo, 'it's not the years, it's the mileage', " he quips, and is rewarded with a half-smile. "That's a hell of a thing to go through, Charlie. I'm glad you were smart enough to make your way back."

"You and me both," Charlie agrees, then sighs, and opens her laptop again. "OK, so we're building a spell, right?"

There's a browser notification waiting for Charlie, though, so she opens a small window to the side of her spell spreadsheeet to check her email. The address is unfamiliar: a series of random-looking letters and numbers before the "@", with a direct-to-IP address as the mail server. There's no subject line, and the message is only one line: _this is a warning_ , with a tinyurl weblink below. If this were any other person's email, they would have dismissed the strange address as a hallmark of spam and wouldn't have opened it—but Charlie is Charlie, and she has friends in high, low, and out-of-the-way places, Moondoor not the weirdest among them. She copies and pastes the email address into a homemade server search engine and sticks her thumbnail between her teeth while it searches. 

"Charlie?" Sam ventures, and she starts, realizing suddenly that she'd sort of just checked out in the middle of the roll they'd been on. 

"Sorry, Sam, I just--" The search pings: . She clicks the last, and the list of nonstandard email addresses she has saved pops up: this one isn't a match to any of them, but the IP address matches a few she's gotten from Garth. _Another alias, good to know,_ she thinks, and clicks the tinyurl. 

Sam is leaning over her shoulder now and watches with Charlie as a new window pops up with a black-and-white image. It's the Bunker's garage door, midday, and...that's it. The image is framed in foliage, as if the camera operator is hiding in the bushes across the road. 

"Another warning?" Sam murmurs, but movement at the top right corner of the frame catches Charlie's eye. The leaves are fluttering in a slight breeze, and Charlie shivers to realize that this is a video. There's no timer bar at the bottom of the window...is this _live_???

"Son of a _bitch_ ," Sam breathes, apparently coming to the exact same realization at the exact same time. He lunges in the direction of the garage exit, but Charlie sees more movement on the screen--"Sam, wait!"

The garage exit is a large, rusted culvert grate that slides out of the way of the exit tunnel on surprisingly well-greased rails, James Bond-style, and seals itself against intrusion with a system of air-pressure locks. Twenty feet behind it is the real garage door, a standard, well-oiled rolling panel door painted black and out of view of any natural light source on the other side of the culvert. The tunnel is concrete and so is the pad in front of the culvert, stained with the detrius of decades of leaves, water, snowmelt, and soil erosion; it is difficult to pick out any evidence of moving vehicles around the exit. 

Yet there are two human figures, obviously snooping around the exit. Both appear male, and while there's no sound attached to the video stream it doesn't appear that they're doing a lot of talking, either with each other or on a comm system. One, the taller of the two, walks around to the side of the culvert and begins to climb the cut bank above it. There is a small, perfunctory rail up there, no more than four feet long, and made mostly of rust; the climber squats down next to it and drags a hand through the accumulated leaf-mould there. The other man walks back and forth on the concrete pad, and Charlie realizes that he's walking a sweep pattern from the culvert grate, probably out the ditch and up to the road. The road is asphalt, the bank the ditch is in is a mixture of soil, grass, and busted concrete, pressed mostly flat, and the cut bank leads down to the concrete pad: there shouldn't really be any evidence of tire tracks for him to find. 

Charlie clenches her teeth around a thumbnail and draws her knees up into her chin, making herself small in the chair. 

"Who the _hell_ is nanny-camming us?" Sam demands of the room in general. Charlie is willing to bet that Nathalie has sent her the feed, but if it's live _and_ Nathalie is the one who set up the cam, that means she's probably nearby. 

"Look, look--" Sam points at the screen, where the grid-walking guy has drawn near the camera. He's seen something in the foliage and stoops, staring directly into the lens. Still, there is no sound, but it's clear that he's started yelling to his companion about what he's found. Sam points to the upper left corner of the window as the man reaches for the camera; the view swings dizzily around as he picks it up, and for a moment he holds it in front of his face. 

His eyes are entirely black, corner to corner. Over his right shoulder, behind his partner (who is making his way down the bank), Charlie can see movement in the trees. Someone is running away. 

The feed is cut off: the taller demon has dropped the camera and stomped on it. Sam and Charlie stare at each other for a moment: going out to investigate and kill the demons will give away the position of the Bunker. If they've been investigating, then there's a more-than-a-million chance that Dean's given Crowley their location. The wards are up, though, and holding; if they do nothing, the demons won't be able to get inside, not without direct help from someone inside the Bunker. The odds of an ambush, though, have now gone up about five thousand percent, and the expiration date on the milk is fast approaching. They're gonna have to leave at some point. 

Charlie's phone chimes and she almost jumps out of her skin. She scrabbles on the tabletop for it, shoving aside papers and scattering post-it notes, and sees a text from none other than Nathalie flash on the screen. She shows Sam:

_So I'm in the neighborhood..._

"What do you want to do?" Sam asks quietly. Charlie can't decide: bring her in and save her life, or pretend she wasn't home, and preserve their secret? Sam sees the indecision writ large on Charlie's face, and takes the phone from her unprotesting hand so that he can type a reply. A moment later, Nathalie texts back, and Sam nods.

"Grab your guns, Charlie, and the holy water. She's closest to the south fire exit now, and if we're quick the demons don't have to know we're out there."

A quick handful of minutes later, Sam is wheeling open the vault-lock on the south exit, the one that opens into a narrow rock corridor cut off the riverbank. There is access from above, but it is a fifteen-foot drop; the stone-sided hallway is only four feet wide at it's widest point, and the three-foot-wide entrance is angled such that it's practically invisible until a person sets foot inside it. The rock is studded liberally with salt crystals set in rows, making the approach to the door annoyingly painful for any unearthly creature that might try it. Charlie has one of her breech-load pistols full of salt shells in one hand, and in the other is a flask of holy water. She leads the way out the rock corridor, stepping as quietly as possible on the loose pebbles of the riverbank as she emerges. 

She sees Nathalie almost immediately, as the bronze-haired woman picks her way with good speed and poor grace across the stepping-stones in the river. Unthinking, Charlie whistles: the signal-tune from Oz, three cascading trills that mimic the Clockwork Nightingale's song. Nathalie looks up and sees her just as one of the demons emerges from the brush on the far bank. 

With an impossible leap the demon clears the river, landing with a splash in the shallows on Charlie's side. He is between Charlie and Nathalie with his back turned to Charlie, and she barely lets the thought register before yanking the cork out of her flask with her teeth and charging forward. The first splash of holy water catches the back of his neck, hissing like oil on a hot skillet, and he roars, spinning around with both fists out to try and catch her. There was a time, not so long ago, when Charlie would have been frozen in fear—wouldn't even be out in the middle of the woods, trying to help a mostly-stranger escape from demons. She'd have been killed almost instantly. That was the Charlie that had faced Dick Roman. This Charlie, however, had fought with and against Talking Lions, Tigers, and yes, even Bears, as well as warring factions of Munchkins, for almost six years—and Munchkins, to a man, fought dirty. 

Charlie ducked easily under his blows and splashed him again, this time in the face. The demon howled and clawed for her; Charlie dropped her flask and her gun and pinned one of his outstretched arms under hers, and grabbed and gripped his chin in her other hand. 

_"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. Ergo, omnis legio diabolica, adjuramus te... "_ The words came to mind easily, and Charlie knew that her nerd-based Latin pronunciations were near-perfect. As the demon threw back his head and the black smoke erupted from his vessel's mouth, Charlie kept up the litany of exorcism, not hearing Sam shout. The shotgun blast came from downstream just as she was finishing the last phrase. 

She dropped the vessel, turning towards the sound: there was Sam, some twenty yards down the bank, with the muzzle of his gun practically buried in the other demon's mouth. He doesn't fire, though: in one movement he yanks the man up, using the gun as leverage, and yanks something out of the inside pocket of his coat. Then he pulls the gun from the demon's mouth and plunges his other fist into the demon's gut.   
The demon flashes and writhes, the vessel's skeleton showing through the skin, before it drops, smoking, into the shallows. Charlie just stares in shock as Sam splash-jogs over to her: so much for Oznian-War-Vet Charlie. 

"You _killed_ him!" She blurts as Sam draws up in front of her. Sam's face clouds as he looks from her, to Nathalie, to the man lying prone at her feet.

"What, you didn't? Charlie!"

"No, I didn't _kill the vessel_ , Sam, I _expelled the demon_!" Charlie snaps, bending down to haul the guy up into a sitting position, the better to check his breathing. The holy water burns are going to be painful, but they'll heal, like any other burn. 

"Charlie—where do you think that demon's going to go, huh? Just float around in the woods for a while and then _disappear? You sent it back to Hell_ ," Sam bellows, "right back to Crowley and Dean!" He grabs her shoulders and gives her a shake, staring right back at her, wide-eyed, until the words sink in.

"Fuck!" Charlie groans, breaking out of his grip and turning away. "Fuck," she repeats, more quietly, watching Nathalie make the last hop from stone to riverbank. 

"Nice neighborhood y'all got here," Nathalie calls, obviously trying to ignore the two men lying on the bank. Sam's demon is still smoking.


	6. Where the Grass is Green and the Girls are Pretty

The three of them have been on lockdown for a day and a half when Sam and Charlie's phones ding at the same time. It's an unknown number, but the text reads _I am ready to help with the plan, but wardings are keeping me out of the Bunker. Come to the Denny's in town. Cas. PS Poughkeepsie_

Sam and Dean's codeword doesn't mean safety, though: Dean always knew it and since Gadreel's posession of Sam, Crowley knows it as well. The Denny's in town is a fairly public place, however, and any disturbance there would mean a lot of civillian interference, which might be a big enough wrench to throw off the plans for an ambush. 

"I hear a lot of 'if' going into this..." Charlie said for the third time, but continued packing her messenger bag for the jaunt into town. Sam just shook his head: this was a risk they'd have to take, and the Bunker would be sealed against intrusion until they returned. 

Nathalie is completely calm. In the last thirty-six hours she'd all but moved in, claiming one of the old dorm rooms to camp out in overnight and making everyone bacon and eggs in the morning. She's admitted to surveiling the Bunker and tracking them down, but has been impressively vague about why. Every time Charlie has sought to question her motives, Nathalie has answered two or three of the broader questions, but only winked and held a finger to her lips, saying "Spoilers!" when Charlie's questions get too pointed. The _Doctor Who_ reference was cute the first time—with her lively, curling bronze hair, Nathalie can kind of pull off the River Song look—but it grew tired quickly. Still, Nathalie submitted to being scored with a silver knife, dusted with oak, ash, and rowan ash, and to being spritzed with holy water and dabbed with holy oil—and no reaction. She'd walked without qualm over several of the devil's traps inscribed in the floors of the Bunker, and had shown no discomfort when squeezing down the cut-rock corridor towards the south entrance. All signs point to her being human, which meant that if necessary, Sam and Charlie together could probably keep her from killing one or both of them if needs be. 

The Chocolate Frog rolls out of the garage without incident, picking up Sam and Nathalie a few hundred yards down the road from the Bunker's culvert entrance. It's a good forty-five minutes to drive into town, most of that passing in silence: all three of them are on high alert, looking for signs that more demons are doing recon around the Bunker's location. As of yet, there has been no sign.

They pull into the parking lot and Nathalie leans over the back of the front bench seat. "So I get that this is a sensitive rendezvous," she observes, "and I'm wondering if y'all want me to stay with the car whilst you meet your buddy in there." They haven't told her about Cas and what he was trying to do; she hadn't asked why Charlie was normally seen working with one Hunter, but holing up with another, much less a Winchester. Charlie privately thinks that Nathalie had been spying on the boys for a long time before she came back from Oz.

Sam and Charlie exchange a look, and Charlie tosses Nathalie the keys. "Sure, if that's what you want," Charlie agrees. There is a spare key for the Frog in the front pocket of her messenger bag, and the walk back to the Bunker—if somehow, the Frog were to go missing while they were enjoying their Moons Over My Hammy—would be a hassle, but not the end of the world. 

Cas is sitting in a corner booth, watching ice melt in his water glass. Sam can feel it radiating off of him when they're still a few yards away; Charlie doesn't seem to notice until they reach the booth and Castiel looks up at them and smiles.

"Whoa," Sam says.

"Yeah," Castiel answers, and then breathes deeply in and out, a sigh of almost profound relief. He is...not relaxed, exactly, but composed, as if all the fraying ends of Cas have been smoothed down, pulled together, and setted within the shell of former insurance salesman Jimmy Novak. He is calm. Still, he is not quite peaceful. Charlie slides into the booth next to Sam. 

"Did you ever see that movie, with John Travolta, where he's an angel and every where he goes, women just fall all over him because he smells like cookies?" she asks, and both Sam and Castiel give her blank looks. "I was just wondering," she mutters, scrunching back in her seat a little. Cas doesn't smile, but suddenly all Charlie can smell are sugar cookies, and as soon as he sees her sniff he winks at her. 

"I have taken a deal with my....with the Heavenly Host," Cas announces very quietly, once coffee has been served. His voice is deeper and more gravelly than usual, and there is a faint chime when he says 'heavenly'. "The angels offered me Metatron's grace, in order to keep him imprisoned safely in Heaven [slight ringing]."

"What'd they want in return?" Sam asks gravely.

"A...favor, to be named later," the angel replies. "A favor I must needs repay, whether or not your trip to the past is successful. I must send you back to the time before Metatron begins his spell, so that it is never completed and the angels never fall. You must find me and ensure that I understand the gravity of the situation." Cas is speaking very carefully, Charlie realizes; very slowly and precisely, and even then he can't control the effect of certain words.

"Can you handle this, Cas?" She interrupts, and both he and Sam look at her with surprise. "I mean, you seem a little...fragile, right now. How long's it been since you had grace?"

"I assure you, I am not 'fragile'. Quite the opposite, actually." Castiel spreads his hands on the tabletop, staring at the fingers as he flexes them. "Metatron's grace is...potent. He spent millenia in the Divine Presence, working closely with God, and that made him powerful. I am...containing that power now. It is taking some getting used to."

"You're not going to send me back to the dark ages, are you?" Sam asks, and there's real trepidation in his voice. 

"No, no, not at all. I know when and where I will send you, and how long you will have to complete your task," Cas reassures him. "Perhaps you should have a full meal beforehand, as I believe you'll be rather busy...?" And suddenly their waiter is there, a kid who looks like he's twelve and half-asleep behind his giant praying-mantis-eye glasses.

"Nah, Cas, last time you sent us back somewhere....well, let's just say I'm glad I went on an emptry stomach." Sam still looks nervous; he's scrubbing his palms on his jeans. 

"Do you want to do this now?" Cas asks gently.

Charlie and Sam exchange a look. "Uh, yeah, I...I guess. I mean, I've got everything I need, and we've got a plan, sorta, right?"

Castiel leans forward, one hand outstretched, to place his thumb against Sam's forehead, right between the eyebrows. "I am sending you back to April of 2013. The Prophet will be looking for help translating the Angel Tablet. You will want to travel to New Mexico to find Metatron; do not do this. Go instead to Cain's farm and convince him to take up the First Blade to kill Abbaddon. Stop Dean and yourself from completing the Second Trial. You will have three days."

"Three...?"

"I will bring you back at noon on the third day. This is the limit of Metatron's power." Castiel smiles slightly. "Please do not get yourself killed in the past. I do not know if this grace will sustain chronokinesis _and_ a resurrection before it burns out."

"Okay." Sam blows a breath out, and then locks eyes with Castiel. "Okay," he says again, and Charlie's ears pop with the brief explosion of pressure as Castiel pushes his thumb hard against Sam's forehead. 

 

++++

 

"Majesty....?" 

Crowley growls over his shoulder, straightening slowly from where he had leaned over the map-table. "I distinctly remember," he gravels, "informing _someone_ out there that I didn't want any more stupid interruptions. And I distinctly remember that the person I informed was _you_ , Niall. Do you think my memory is _failing_ , Niall? Have I made a mistake?" He turns, offering the bodyguard a less-than-beautific smile.

Niall's adams apple bobs as he swallows his nerves. "No, no your majesty," he stammers. Such anxiety is terribly unfitting in a man of his size, Crowley thinks, and Niall surprises him a little by continuing: "...but one of your scouts has returned, and he has news you'll want to hear, I think.'

"You _think_ now, eh Niall?" Another voice comes from the corner. This one is almost a purr, and the speaker is nearly lost in the shadows that extend over the smaller table at which he is sitting. "Crowley, look, you got a two-for-one in that dipshit. What a deal."

Crowley sighs. "Send him in, Niall, then report to the lower chamber and tell 'em I want your fingernails pulled out. Darling," he calls back to the shadowed corner, "why don't you leave off for the time being. You can resume your duties after dinner. My Knight and I have matters to discuss."

There is the creaking of a chair, and the sound of a zipper being done up. A black-eyed young woman, all luscious curves and shining black hair, quick-steps from the corner out to the hall without looking at Crowley, and Niall pulls the door shut behind her.

"You've got to expand your palette, dearest," Crowley murmurs. "Everyone has a type, I know, but there are only so many double-D Chinese co-ed exchange students in the area, and despite your opinion to the contrary, my demons don't exist just to possess them and fellate you."

"Coulda fooled me," Dean groans, then chuckles, finally getting up from his chair and swaggering over to the map table. Crowley makes a mental note to find out who it was that got the silver-spurred cowboy boots for him, and to have that demon flayed. Every step Dean makes sounds like sleigh bells on an anvil. 

"Hard day at work, my darling?" Crowley purrs, studying a well-marked map. There are seven small red circles marked on it, all within a three-mile square: known entrances to the Men of Letters bunker. 

"Oh, you know, the usual. TPS reports and nailing people to crosses in the morning, then training some of the new recruits after lunch and setting other new recruits on fire."

"Sounds terribly strenuous. I can appreciate your need for assisted relaxation." In reality, Crowley has Dean leading raids on known Hunter safehouses and weapons caches. There isn't really anything in particular that they're looking for, but it's always nice to know that another hunter has been removed from his concern, and that their cursed, blessed, and otherwise occult collections are enriching his own stockpiles. 

Crowley hasn't looked at Dean once since Niall and Dean's toy left the room. He holds out a hand, snaps his fingers, and smiles at the poof of displaced air as the demon scout Niall mentioned materializes in the room. His face bears the splash-scars of an encounter with holy water. 

Dean summons a chair out from the wall and slams the other demon into it. "Why'd you come back?" He asks quietly, leaning on the chair arms to get close to the scout's face. "There were two of you. One of you is dead. Why'd you come back?"

"Down, boy," Crowley says, but his tone is mild. He clasps his hands behind his back and faces Dean and his victim, smiling that same, terribly uncomforting smile. "That's an interesting question he's raised, don't you think....?"

"Myles, my lord." This demon is already nervous. Dean continues to loom over him.

"Myles. How _is_ it that you made it back, but your companion did not?"

"We...we found a surveillance camera, your majesty. Not one of ours. Set up outside one of the entrances."

"Ah, and the surveillance camera covered your escape while simultaneously destroying your companion with a demon-blade, is that it?"

"No, your majesty, no...I, uh...we found the girl who'd set the camera, and were chasing her through the woods, when the tall one--" Myles looked nervously at Dean, who now stood directly to his left, staring him down with his arms crossed over his chest. "You know, the Win-- the taller one--"

"Moose, you mean," Crowley supplied.

"Yes sir, yes. He, uh, he comes out of nowhere, shooting salt at Caleb, and there's this girl with holy water--"

"The girl with the camera?" Dean asks. 

"No, different one. Redhead. Got me front and back, then said the exorcism."

"And I suppose it follows that Moose stabbed your friend and destroyed him."

"I was already gone, sir. Please, I'm sorry."

"Redhead, you said, right?" Dean leans on the arms of the chair again, more intense and less menacing. "So you got a redhead with holy water and another chick with a camera."

"Yeah. Redhead and curly-haired girl. Curly haired girl has the camera."

"Redhead had the holy water? And the incantation?" Dean is searching Myle's ruined face, his eyes gone completely black. Myles can see his reflection. He looks nervous. He nods, just enough that Dean can see it.

"She's about this tall, kinda skinny, little bucky-toothed," Dean pushes himself up from the chair and holds a hand just below his own chin, still staring at Myles.

"Yeah, yeah, that's her."

Dean points at the map table. "Show us where you saw 'em."

Myles scrambles out of the chair and jabs a hasty finger at one of the smallest blue circles. This one is right on a riverbank, almost two and a half miles from the nearest road.

"You may go, Myles." Crowley returns to gazing at the map. "Oh, and tell Niall he gets to keep three of his fingernails. He was right, we did want to know this."

Myles babbles thanks and honorifics as he scoots out the door. Crowley looks at Dean.  
"So?"

"That's the south fire exit," Dean jerks his chin towards the map. "I never used it, but I knew it was there. Entrance is surrounded by salt. Not a great place to push in, but pretty good for an ambush." Crowley takes a green post-it flag and plants it on the map, near the circle. There are other green flags at other likely ambush spots; yellow goes to possible secret exits, and blue are for places where they might storm the entrance and overwhelm the Bunker. Providing, of course, that all one hundred and three demon traps were disabled beforehand....

"Well, sounds like Moose is there," Crowley muses. "And the girls? Who's the one with the curls?"

"Dunno. Don't give a rat's ass, either, but I guess I can find out."

"And you know the redhead." This isn't a question. 

"Oh, you bet I do." A slow, nasty smile spreads over Dean's face. His eyes are still black. He hums quietly to himself, and chuckles. He lays one finger down on a blue circle with a blue post-it flag. "Charlie's back, huh? Oh won't you please take me home, yeah yeah."


	7. Three's Company

Castiel and Charlie spend about twenty more minutes discussing the modifications she's going to have to make to some of the angel-warding sigils on the Bunker's entrances before he can come home. She also fills him in on her and Sam's research, and the excitement of the last two days.

"So maybe _you_ can convince Nathalie to spill the beans about why she's been tailing my boys," Charlie finishes, holding the door open for Cas as they exit the diner. "She seemed to like you well enough the last time we saw her."

Nathalie is leaning against the Frog's back hatch, blowing smoke at the sky; she stubs her cigarette out as Charlie and Cas approach. As she turns and sees the two of them, the smile on her face disappears. 

"You...." she breathes, and then her face contorts into a rictus of rage. "You shit-winged _bastard_!"

Nathalie has been, up until this moment, an easygoing and good-humored companion. Charlie is even beginning to like her, despite the unanswered questions about her surveiling the Bunker. Nathalie has never yet used her greater height or strength to try to intimidate either Charlie or Sam, and she's never seemed to have a reason to move fast for anything. That impression is shredding, however, as her green eyes begin to glow gray and she literally _snarls_ at Castiel.

Cas thrusts Charlie behind him with more angelic strength than is strictly necessary, yanking his angel blade from his coat in the same motion. Tangled up in the excess of Cas' trenchcoat, Charlie only hears Nathalie's charge, but she definitely feels the impact of incredible force meeting immovable object: the three of them are on the ground, Charlie on the bottom, while Castiel and Nathalie grapple for the angel blade. Charlie manages to roll out from the fray, skinning her palms on the parking lot asphalt, just as the blade skitters past her. She dives for it. 

"Stop it!" Charlie hollers, blade upraised in one hand while she fishes in the melee for a sleeve or collar to grab. She manages to find Nathalie's hood and yank her backwards and the two of them separate a little. 

There is shouting from the restaurant door: the manager (with several of the waitstaff crowding behind him) is leaning out of the Denny's exit, yelling threats about calling cops and cans of whoop-ass if the three of them don't stop fighting in the parking lot. Charlie hides the angel blade behind her, waving to the man in what she hopes is a reassuring fashion. _Nothing to worry about, mister, my friends are just crazy_. Then she turns and kicks the nearest dumbass in the ribs. Nathalie is almost on her feet again, and though there is a scrape and a bruise darkening on one cheek, the most striking thing Charlie can see is that the other woman is nearly blinded by angry tears. 

"You stupid, murdering motherfucker," Nathalie sobs, hands on her knees and jaw clenched. "I should have known. I should have killed you when I had the chance."

Cas stands, dignified, shooting his cuffs under his coat sleeves and brushing gravel from his pants. "Charlie, give me my blade." He holds out one hand imperiously.

"Uh, no. No blades for either of you til you tell me what the hell this is all about."

"She is an abomination, Charlie, and must be put down. Give me my blade." 

"Put _down_?? Christ, Castiel, slow your roll, will you?" Charlie takes another step backwards, still holding the blade at arm's-length behind her. Cas disappears-- _literally_ disappears before her eyes—and then a strong hand is on her wrist, squeezing tight, while the other wrenches the angel blade from her grip. Cas advances on Nathalie, still kneeling on the blacktop, sobbing. Charlie flings herself at the other woman, covering her as much as she can with her smaller frame.

"Cas, _stop_!" she screams, and to her relief, he does. The angel pauses two paces away, blade slowly lowering to his side. Charlie gets to her feet carefully, keeping her body between Castiel and Nathalie. 

"What. The. Fuck, you two!" 

"She is a nephil, Charlie. An outlawed crossbreeding of an angel and a human. She is an abomination in the sight of Heaven and must be destroyed."

"Is that what you told her?" Nathalie demands, glaring at Castiel. "Is that what you told Jane before you stabbed her in the back and cut out her heart, you featherbrained jackass? That she was an _abomination_ who didn't deserve to live?" She gets to her feet, and Charlie can see that the knees on her jeans are torn out, and blood is seeping down her shins. "She was just a _kid_!"

"Stop it!" Charlie orders again, grabbing the sleeve of Nathalie's hoodie and shoving her backwards against the Frog's fender. "One of you is going to tell me what the hell is going on, or I swear I'll pump you so full of rock salt Gordon Ramsay will use you for table settings!"

Nathalie wipes her face on her sleeve. "That's the angel Castiel, Charlie," she points to him. Her hand is shaking. "He killed my little sister Jane."

And just when Charlie thinks the whole weird tableau can't be fraught with any more tension, Sam Winchester falls out of the sky and onto the hood of her car.

++++

 

Two hours later, the four of them are back at the Bunker. Charlie had insisted that Castiel do what he could for Sam while they were in the parking lot; there was a good hour of work ahead of her to modify the angel warding sigils at the Bunker where he'd be stuck outside, and none of Sam's injuries should wait that long. 

According to Castiel, Sam isn't really that injured: bruised ribs from hitting the car hood, sure, and a goose egg rising from his scalp on the same side, but otherwise, he's simply unconscious. He's also not where or when Cas sent him, but answering that why is going to have to wait until the Moose awakens. 

There isn't much talk; until Sam wakes up, Charlie really can't think of much to say. Nathalie has locked herself into the room she's been using, and Castiel disappeared sometime between leaving the Denny's parking lot and arriving back at the Bunker. Charlie hasn't made any of the modifications to the angel sigils that would let him back in—that bastard made her figure out how to lug a couple hundred pounds of Moose through the various entry tunnels that lead into the Bunker, _by herself_. He can sit and stew out in the cold for a while as far as she's concerned. 

With nothing else to do, Charlie puts the kettle on and takes her mug of tea and her laptop back to her own room. She's down the hall from Sam, so she should be able to hear him when he gets up. For now, she's going to try to figure out what went wrong with the time-travel spell and studiously ignore the spontaneous fistfight between Cas and Nathalie. 

Sam stirs about an hour and a half later; Charlie can hear his feet hit the floor and he moans. She hops down from her bed and is in his doorway a second later. 

"How ya doin, Sammy?" Charlie asks cautiously. Sam's holding his head in his hands like it weighs a couple tons. 

"Hi Charlie," he grates. "This is the same day I left, huh?"

"Yup. About four hours later. What happened?"

"I....I don't know. Cas sent me, but I don't...I don't know if I got anywhere. Last time I got sent back there was just...like, I blinked, I felt like I rode a rollercoaster, and then I was there. Almost not a big deal. This time, though." Sam drags his hands down his face, pulling it into a Droopy-Dog mask, "this time there was no rollercoaster. It felt like the time we got sideswiped in the Impala. Just—something hit me. And then I landed on your car."

Charlie's phone dings in her pocket. Digging it out, she sees a message from Castiel:   
_you were blocked, as though by a closed door._

"Huh," she says. "Esoteric. A little mysterious. What's it mean?"

On the bedside table, Sam's phone buzzes. Another text message:

_It means I can hear you._

"Weeeeiiird," Charlie says with a little shiver, and Sam nods. 

_summoning ritual and i can bypass the warding sigils on the entrances._

_I am standing in the Denny's parking lot. Perform the angel_

Charlie has to puzzle her latest message for a moment, before realizing that the close proximity of the sending phone to the receiving phone has scrambled the two halves of Cas' message. Sam knows the ritual; Charlie walks with him through gathering the supplies, and at his direction she draws the diagram on the floor, copying the Enochian sigils to his exacting specifications. She draws a chair over to the edge of the diagram so he can light the bowl of potpourri from the right place.

In an instant Castiel is there, and despite the otherwise boring nature of today's weather, there is a flash of lightning and a gust of wind at his arrival. In the flash, Charlie sees the shadows of his wings: a vast, spreading, vulture-like pair pinioned at his shoulders, with a smaller, more bedraggled set drooping below them. Castiel notices her staring, and nods.

Sam drags a toe across one of the chalked lines on the floor, and Castiel steps out from the diagram. He looks again at Charlie. "Is she here?"

Charlie nods. "I can ask her to leave if you want," she offers, although it's not the solution she's hoping for. She looked up 'nephilim' during her downtime this afternoon, and while some of the information was clearly false, she liked what lined up with what she'd seen of Nathalie's abilities that afternoon. Having Nathalie around means an extra set of nearly-angel-strength hands nearby, and for the most part she's shown herself to be...if not always directly friendly, then at least not opposed to everyone else's continued existence. Well, Charlie and Sam's continued existence, anyways. 

"That won't be necessary," Cas replies, and Charlie doesn't bother to hide a sigh of relief. "She comes by her grief honestly, and I cannot, in honesty, blame her for it."

"So you did kill her sister," Sam states. 

"I did, although it was not my choice. Shall we--" Castiel reaches out, touching both of the on the shoulder, and suddenly they're in the kitchen. Sam's chair has come with him. 

"Let's bring Nathalie in on the discussion, ok?" Charlie suggests, once she's caught her breath. She's never teleported with an angel before, and part of the process seems to be leaving all the air in one's lungs behind to better balance the sudden void in space where one had been standing. Cas raises a hand as if he's going to offer to just _bring_ Nathalie to the kitchen, but Charlie manages to scramble out of her own chair and beat him to the exit. 

Nathalie's door is open; she's sitting on the bed, a pillow squeezed between her crossed arms. Charlie knocks softly as a courtesy.

"You doin' ok?" She asks, and Nathalie nods, then shakes her head.

"I dunno," she rasps, her voice raw from crying. "I don't....I don't know what I was thinking. Jane and I thought we were the last ones, which means that I can't actually expect to slide-tackle an angel and win. That's...well, courting extinction, right?"

"He's in the kitchen, with Sam," Charlie says. "We need a new plan, since Sam apparently didn't go anywhere when Castiel sent him back in time. I get the feeling you'd be a good person to make a plan with."

"Back in time?"

"Yeah...c'mon, let's get coffee and we'll explain everything."

Nathalie doesn't get up. "I can't sit at a table and drink coffee with my sister's murderer."

"....Yeah, ok. I get that," Charlie says after a moment. "I'm sorry, I didn't think. But...we kind of need him for this thing we're planning, and I think we'll kind of need you, too. He says killing your sister wasn't his choice. He's a good guy, Nathalie, and he's been a good guy as long as I've known him. I can't imagine that _Cas_ would just drop down on someone and kill 'em for no good reason."

"Oh, he had a reason, and if he didn't have a choice..." Nathalie's words trail off. 

"He's an angel. Technically he's one of my uncles, because my father was an angel too and they're all supposed to be brothers. But I'm a nephil, I'm half-angel, and because of that all the angels are supposed to try to kill me. Us. Jane and I, we didn't ask for this. Wed have done _literally_ nothing to deserve this, and that...Castiel, that _angel_ " she spat the word, "is sitting out there expecting me to drink fucking _coffee_ with him and help him with whatever fucked-up plan you three are cooking up." Nathalie ran out of breath.

"Nathalie..."

"Don't call me that. It's not my name." 

"What?"

"My name is Nisha Mavros. I haven't...I haven't used my real name in a long time. Jane's real name was Temperance Ashworth, and she hadn't been Temperence for fifty years."

Charlie waits til Na—Nisha looks up at her. Her hazel eyes are red and dry, and slightly darker freckles stand out against her tawny skin. Her face is a study in the myriad meanings of the word "heartbroken". Charlie sticks out one hand.

"Well, my name's Celeste Middleton, but I haven't gone by that name in a long time, either. Most people know me as Charlie Bradbury. I'm a regular human, and both my folks are gone; Sam and Dean Winchester are the closest things I've had to family in a long, long time. Castiel is...a part of that, I guess, part and parcel with the whole Hunter lifestyle."

Nisha makes a moue, then takes Charlie's hand in a grip that manages to convey the irony in their re-meeting. "Is this the part of your speech where you tell me to pull myself up by my bootstraps and let's go kill some monsters, because if I step out that door I'm a superhero, with all the privelages and responsibilities implied with the position?" She lets go of Charlie's hand.

As a matter of fact, that was going to be the next part of Charlie's soliloquy. It had seemed so right a second ago; now, she swallowed, audibly, with a _glump_ noise, and dropped her hand. 

"I, uh..."

"Look, Charlie--" Nisha shakes her head, bronze curls bouncing. "I'll tell you right now, so you don't have to try to find a way to ask: I _was_ following you. Have been, ever since you showed up to help the Winchester brothers with that hybrid djinn. Before that, I was tracking them, and I had been from the time I heard they were playing house with an angel. I figured, I dunno, that eventually the angel would meet the same end that everyone else did when they hang out with the Winchesters for too long. I hoped, because that angel was the first of his kind to spend any significant amount of time on Earth in my lifetime." 

"Why do the angels want to kill you?" Charlie asks, quietly.

Nisha doesn't answer for a moment. She's staring off into space. "Did you know that Heaven hates it here? Most of Heaven hates Earth. Thinks it's a waste of time. My _maman_ told me that: Heaven resents Earth and Hell, and they have since the beginning. They'd just as soon the whole petri dish got tossed on the fire. They could have their war with Hell, and no matter how long it took, there needn't be any mortal consequences about it because there'd be no naive bystanders in the middle.

"My mother was a washerwoman in Calais. She was born in 1812 and in 1830 she claimed to have had a vision and a visitation from an angel. My grandpere thought she'd gone mad—apparenty my grandmere started having visions and fits not long after my mother was born. Well, I'd shown up by the end of 1831 so grandpere knew she'd really had a visit from _somebody_. We moved to Boston, and she died in 1862. My father came to her funeral. First time I'd met him."

"Who was he?"

"Never gave his name. Blonde, British accent...kind of a jerk, really." Nisha scrubs her face with her hands again, pulling her hair back from her forehead so that her eyes stretch wide. "He did say I'd have to lay low, because I was...illegal. He'd made a joke, he said, and no one else found it funny. I wanted to tell him how my mother had worked her hands raw, day in and day out, scrubbing piss and shit stains out of other peoples' linens, talking to herself more and more because no one would believe that he wasn't just some farmhand from the local dairy. I wanted to ask him if part of the joke was that my mother hadn't actually driven herself crazy, second-guessing what she remembered and what people told her must be true. I wanted to know which of those was the funny part."

"He showed up again when I was living in California in 1951. Had the name and address of a family in San Francisco that'd just had a little girl. He'd 'dallied' with the young wife, he said, and if I had time might I look in on my little sister. I bought a house in their neighborhood a year later. Spent a lot of Temprence's childhood as her babysitter. Our dad never showed up again. Limey bastard. Jane didn't take the talk about our powers all that well. I could've used his help."

"Sounds like Balthazar," Sam murmurs from the doorway, and Charlie jumps, although Nisha just drops her head for a second like she's trying not to laugh.

"You met him. You knew his name, but he couldn't be bothered to look in on his daughters a couple times?"

"Look, Nathalie--"

"Nisha," she corrects him, and Sam adjusts to the change with admirable speed. 

"OK, Nisha. I know you're hurting, and I know what it's like to want to get revenge on the people who killed your sister. My brother's died twice" ("Three times, now," Charlie amends quietly) "and each time... it was like my soul was-- being sawed in half. That's why we need your help. He's in trouble again, and I'm not letting him get damned for all eternity if there's anything I can do about it."

Nisha looks at Sam, hard. "You really think, after all this time, that you can save _Dean Winchester_ from self-imposed damnation? I mean, have you _met_ the man?"

"Have you?" Charlie challenges.

"Not in person, but his reputation more than makes up for a lack of face time. I mean, you meet some pretty interesting types when you're on the run from the fuckin' _Heavenly Host_ , and none of them has anything to say about Dean Winchester having less than a full-on redwood boner for his own self-destruction."

A muscle in Sam's jaw jumps as he grinds his teeth together, against the reply he probably wants to make. Instead, he schools his expression into neutrality and asks, "What if we could save your sister for you?"

"You can't." Nisha's voice is flat.

"We're trying," Sam offers. "We're trying to go back in time and fix everything Metatron screwed up. If we can get to him before he gets too strong, then Jane won't have died in vain."

"She won't have died at all, in fact," Charlie grabs for the dangling thread of the conversation. "If we can go back far enough, we can prevent the whole chain of events leading to Jane's death. She'll have never encountered Metawand and Castiel, and you'll have never remembered your sister leaving."

Nisha's eyes are like two marbles, hard and bright with new, unshed tears. Charlie can suddenly picture the other woman leaping across the room and pinning her to the opposite wall by the throat. Instead--

"You can fix this." Her voice is almost a growl.

"We're trying to. If we're succesful, then...Metatron and Castiel never kill your sister, there's no faction war between the angels on earth, my brother never takes the Mark of Cain, and you never have to actually meet any of us."

Nisha blinks, for once looking taken-aback. "The...the Mark of Cain? That's what your brother's got?" She whistles. "That is some...wow. That's deep magic, Sam, like _land before time_ deep. There's no fix for that."

"We know," he answers. "That's why we need to go back in time."

"You don't just need to go _back_ , cherie," Nisha shakes her head, and suddenly there is a French lilt to her words, " you need to _undo_. The kind of magics you're talking about, with angels and the Metatron and the Mark of Cain, that kind of thing _liens dans serré_ to the fabric of the world. It binds up, it stitches itself in. You can't just go back to the beginning and start over; here--" and she grabs the edge of the sheet that's sticking out from under her. Pulling it out to show the top border, she points to the neat row of stitches that hold the decorative ribbon under the folded hem. 

"See here? This holds the part of the sheet together. This is what keeps the pretty colors in with the plain cotton or whatever this is. You can run this through your machine, put another line of stitches here--" and she draws a fingernail in a line, parallel to the first line of thread, "but is not gonna affect the first stitching. No, you want to take this colorful ribbon out, replace it with another one, you have to take these stitches out first. You try to just tear them, you end up ripping the sheet." She thrusts the fabric at Charlie.

"You see?"

Charlie does, but she's thinking of a sheet with field-forms, auto-sums and digital parameters instead. "Yeah, I get it," she answers, slowly, then focuses on Nisha. "Will you please come into the kitchen so we can talk about all of this? I need to pick all of your brains and it would help if you were not trying to take them out of each others' skulls at the same time."

++++

Grace has its privilages: this time, he does not have to spend eight days kneebound in the chapel. Castiel can appear at the sandbox that hides the back-staircase to Heaven, and this time he can climb the service stairs up. They will know he is coming by the time he gets there, and perhaps they will have the answers he's looking for.

The room Ingrid chooses to receive him in is Naomi's old office: narrow, sterile, and bright. She is not sitting at the desk; instead, both chairs are on the same side of the glass-top table, and she is sitting in the one facing the door.

"You knew it wouldn't work." This isn't an accusation or a question; it's just a statement.

Ingrid looks at him a long time before answering. "Yes," she says, simply, as if there is nothing more important than that.  
"Why did you give me Metatron's grace if you knew that my plan wouldn't work?" Cas is slower to anger, now, but he can still feel the frustration burning in his gut. It is a faraway feeling. 

"It was a means to an end. Metatron, without the large part of his grace that you now possess, is mostly harmless. He has no power by which he can influence innocents to help him. He is just a ...shell. On the other hand, you have a great deal of power that is slowly, slowly ebbing, and you have nothing on which to exercise the power. Over the course of the years, without use, Metatron's grace will drain itself. It will escape into the ether, leaving you human once more and Metatron without an means to escape." Though her voice hadn't changed, Ingrid's expression was most definitely smug and self-satisfied. 

"So you bide your time a little, and in the end have neutered two of your biggest threats."

"Oh, Castiel," Ingrid sighs, and actually does the _tsk-tsk_ motion with one forefinger, "I don't know if I would categorize you as one of our 'biggest threats'. Metatron, certainly; but without your Winchester consort, you and your denuded little posse have been downgraded to...annoyance. A thorn in our side, if you will."

The power comes when he calls, so easily: Metatron spent millenia hiding in caves, afraid of discovery, hoarding this divine vigor, and Castiel was a battalion commander for so much of his existence. Strength, now in the hands of one who knows how to use it. 

Ingrid feels his power swelling, and gazes back at him, calmly. "You want to do this, here and now?" she asks, "really?" And her allies surround her, and him, a score of other angels, whole and healthy and full of all the vitality of eternal force. And each holds an angel blade, unmarred, smooth, new-minted.

Cas' own blade has slid into his hand and he looks at it: nicked, scarred, blemished from a thousand mortal and immortal battles. There is a microscopic smear of blood dried into a groove on the hilt. Dirt and sweat have packed themselves into the Enochian runes in the pommel, a patina of hard use. The hand that clenches around the hilt is scarred, too, wrinkled and tired and only just now getting used to the idea of immortality again. 

Castiel folds his borrowed wings, bowing his head, and he and Ingrid are alone again.

"Yes, we knew it wasn't going to work. There is too much magic and divine energy bound up in the events of the last years; no mere human, even assisted by angels, could undo that. Yes, we chose you as the box in which to hide the traitor's grace. No one else is, at this point, expendable: the wars have cost us too much, and too many lives that should have gone on to eternity. You had already been given up. Better you serve some higher purpose before your vessel burns out."

Despite her words, Ingrid's voice is not unkind. "If you would do something, Castiel, to use this power you have been gifted with, then look to the coming confrontation with Hell. Find us some advantage we might exploit. You have allied yourself with the King of Hell in the past, and his Knight was once precious to you. Surely there is something you might discover that will ensure their defeat, once they take their folly in hand and assault our gates."

"Your Gates remain locked," Cas reminds her, but the words are as sour grapes in his mouth.   
"Yes, and thanks to you. If you find another abominable creation that will give you a heart, and thus open Heaven again so all may return, then you may criticize what we do here. Until then, remember that you are responsible for your own downfall. Yours, and ours."  
Ingrid fixes her hard gaze on him. "Is there anything else?"

Castiel does not look at the two angels who escort him back down to Earth, and does not flinch at the sound, like a slamming door made of lightning, that accompanies their return to Heaven. He transports himself back to the Denny's, close to the Bunker, to drink coffee and think.


	8. Freaky Fast Freaky

[Chapter 8: Freaky Fast Freaky]

There have been no other demon patrols, and Charlie, studying the various components of the angel-summoning ritual, has constructed what she calls a "get into the Bunker free" board for Castiel. Granted, it's the size of an open school notebook and he has to bleed on it every time he wants to be inside the Bunker, but at least he doesn't have to loiter in the Denny's parking lot until someone decides to perform the ritual and let him in. 

He and Nisha have come to, if not a peace, then at least a wary cease-fire. There is some part of him—or some part of Metatron—that loathes her on sight. Deep-seated, almost instinctual revulsion. The rest of him, the overwhelming part that remembers being human, in the process of dying, and even remembers the lessons Jimmy Novak wanted to teach his children...that part of him is growing more and more in control of his interactions with Nisha. Castiel is sure that this is also a way to measure the waning power of Metatron's stolen grace. Every day it is easier to be kinder to her, and every day Castiel worries that he will not have the strength left to him when it comes time to un-stitch the past. 

Now it is Charlie's turn to nest in a mound of research, huddled in her room with her laptop . Several times an hour she will text Sam with a question or a request for some source item from the Archives and Stacks, and so he is kept busy fetching for her and usually discussing some point of Men of Letters scholarly achievement. She has broken down the structure and mechanics of a number of simple spells—lighting candles, restoring burnt objects, conjuring water and, very quickly after that, paper towels—and is quickly approaching the ability to dismantle more complex workings. She has also transcribed and cross-referenced Kevin Tran's translation of the Angel Tablet. Castiel, on the other hand, has succeeded in gluing all the peices of the Tablet back together. He feels this is somewhat less of an accomplishment. 

Nisha appears and disappears at random. She is patrolling the area around the Bunker, looking out for more demonic incursions. She is taking small local jobs for Garth, nothing more than a one-day round trip. She is occasionally found at Charlie's punching bag, because she has not forgotten the amount of hatred she has for Castiel. It is plain that her neutrality towards him will only last as long as Cas, Charlie, and Sam are of use to her; if the hope dies on this project, she will be gone. Or she will wait around until Metatron's grace runs out, and she will kill Cas, and _then_ she will be gone. 

++++

The location of Crowley's court doesn't really matter. He can be anywhere, any time; being King has its perks. He refuses to relocate the dungeon to within a hundred miles of the Bunker, because while he's been fooled once about the Winchesters and their pet angel, he will not make the same mistake again. Not when things are going so...well.

Today marks Dean's twentieth raid, and he is in Vancouver, celebrating. Some disgruntled French-Canadien bastard is burning merrily on his own woodpile while Dean and his minions are steadily transporting crate after crate of holy oil, holy water, and various herbal combinations to one of Crowley's storehouses near Spokane. This hunter had specialized in supplying his fellows who were quicker on the draw or handier with a silver knife; he'd apparently worked on the barter system, because while Dean is coming up with a lot of MREs and whiskey, there is almost no cash in the house. That means Dean can get drunk to his heart's content, but if he wants to press a little flesh he's going to have to rely on charm and animal magnetism, rather than the much simpler idea of money in exchange for services. No problem—well, not much, anyway. The damned that Crowley sent out with him might be quick enough on their feet to have evaded Hunters for the last hundred years or so, but they completely lack the imagination, body language,and panache that would make any of them a good wing-man. If he tells them he's going somewhere, rather than drinking in the house before they burn it down, they'll follow him and hang out at the brass rail in a spooky, slightly menacing but sad clump. 

Well, they are in Canada; for all he knows, that's par for the course. 

"That's the last of it, sir," one of the dimwit demons says at his shoulder, and Dean turns with a smile that is not in any way, shape, or form friendly. 

"Make a tally and take it to Cr-- to the King," Dean corrects. Crowley depends on him as an enforcer, and he depends on Crowley to keep literally every single other demon in Hell from coming after the only Winchester they can get their hands on. Thus: the veneer of respect, at least in the face of the rank and file. 

"You're not coming? --sir?" The demon amends when Dean quirks an eyebrow at his familiarity.

"I'll be along in a while.Gonna take in some sights, kick around town for a bit. The King'll understand. You boys just finish up what you're doin' and head back to HQ."

The demon gives him a look (and he's not sure what kind; honestly, the whole black-eyeballs thing makes facial expressions a _lot_ harder to interpret, because it looks like everyone's wearing really tiny sunglasses), but nods and turns back to the four others that had been helping on this trip. On a hunch, Dea tweaks his own hearing just a bit, just enough to hear their muttering over the crackle of flames. 

"Job's done, brring brring, time for the boss to go bottom-feeding," one of them says, and the others mumble agreement. "Gotta go stick his dick in some local shithole," says another. Just like that, Dean is behind him.

His own eyes have blackened, he knows that, and he has the sneaking suspicion that when they do so he gets just a little bit bigger, an inch taller. The Blade is in his hand, summoned by a thought, and one of the remaining teeth on the ancient ass' jaw digs into the second minion's throat. The demon, struck rigid, whimpers.

"Now, I don't know _what_ you boys are talkin' about, over here," Dean murmurs, just loud enough that all five of them can hear, "but I'm _damn_ sure I gave at least one of you an order. In case you forgot, that means no water-cooler talk, least not til the job's done. I would suggest that you get your asses in gear before I have to pull out some of my more creative--" shifting the blade slightly to the right, practically feeling the chipped bone rasp along the demon's skin--"motivational methods." He pulls a little more, and with a little mental twist, makes the burning corpse behind him crack open like a split log on the fire. 

A Glasgow grin is one thing—and one of the many things a demon can heal its vessel of—but pyrokinesis is a power reserved for the upper echelons of Hell's hierarchy. Dean still doesn't know the limits of his new power set, but he's more than happy to figure some of it out on these piles of crap.

Sadly, it's not today: one by one, each of the demons backs down, a couple of them actually stepping back from him. He releases his prisoner, and gives the group a nod. "Get movin', then."

One by one the demons wink out of sight, and Dean's expanded senses let him track them back to Crowley's storehouse, where he knows there are others to make sure everything gets wrapped up properly. For Hell, the whole process is set up to run quite smoothly. 

An hour later he's at the rail, one foot on the table at his side, pelvis in full view of the girl onstage. He hasn't put a dollar down, though, so she's pretty much ignoring him. The guy a couple seats down has a roll of fives, and she's on her knees in front of him. Dean's beer is warm, the chili fries were disgusting, and he's getting bored. So Dean decides to see what he can do to liven up his evening. 

It's easy enough to get into the guy's head. "No touching" rule? Fuck the "no touching'' rule. The guy's hands are suddenly all over the pair of legs in front of him, and she's trying to squirm away—to no avail. The guy's over the rail, reaching for her—all Dean's telling him is _must touch, must touch, must touch_ , and he's obeying wonderfully. Just to see if he could do it, Dean sends a suggestion to the stripper.

She's naked but for her six-inch Lucite stiletto heels, and apparently this is a thing that stripper life prepares a gal for—she spins on one big round butt cheek and lashes out, catching the guy across the cheekbone. And in the eye, with her other foot, and again across the face, because she keeps kicking him in the head. The bouncer's over there already, trying to pull them apart, but Dean's not letting up. _Must touch must touch kick kick must kick must touch kick_

The bouncer has the stripper around the waist and the guy's head is pretty much ruined. She's trying to use the bouncer as leverage to get at him, and he's stumbling and staggering against chairs and tables, trying to press as much of him against her as possible. She is screaming; he is screaming; the bouncer is making some kind of verbal-running noise that isn't words and isn't a scream but is close to both. Dean is reminded of a fairy tale where a girl is cursed to wear ballet slippers that dance of their own volition. He chuckles and swigs his warm beer. He hasn't moved. The stripper is flailing wildly, and for a second she catches his eye. She's clearly terrified, eyes bulging and wide, blood spattered across her face. 

Dean gives her a slow smile and winks.

++++

The EMTs and police don't notice him because he doesn't want them to. His suggestion kept the dude alive a little longer than his body wanted to be—well, the stripper had kicked _through_ the left eyesocket and into his brain, after all—but he was finally taken out in a body bag. The stripper, on the other hand, is still under his suggestion. She's kicking at everything, kicking furniture, kicking cops. They got her hands cuffed and she's dislocated a shoulder with her flailing. A couple cops have tried sitting on her in an attempt to get her legs lashed down, but after a concussion and a broken nose they've decided to just tase her. She's out cold, but Dean still has her kicking. Dean can feel her heart stuttering: fear, adrenaline, and three thousand volts are coming up hard against a lot of caffiene, an irresponsible diet, and a poor sleep schedule. He gives the girl's heart a few more tripping ticks and gives her up. 

She falls limp, finally, and the EMTs rush in, getting her up on a stretcher and cuffing her ankles and wrists to the frame. She's tiny, artificially tanned, with tangled black hair and a heart-and-anchor tattoo on her right calf. Her feet are swollen into her shoes and there's blood pretty much everywhere. A clump of eye or brain tissue is stuck to a stiletto.

"That is some nice work, son," muses a voice behind him. Dean is...almost caught off-guard, but recovers his cool nicely. He didn't hear anyone approach, or sense it, which means he's dealing with someone who's ahead of him in this game.

An older guy, mid-sixties, pulls out the chair next to Dean and sits. Dean can tell he's a demon; he can also tell that while this one might be a normal demonic worker bee, he's also an _old_ demonic worker bee. Any humanity that might have been in this vessel burned out a couple hundred years ago. Dean is impressed: he didn't get the idea that non-critical-thinking demons lasted that long. Dean deigns to give him the chin-jerk nod of indirect, non-hostile greeting. 

"That there is some fine soul-shredding terror you've inspired," the older demon remarks, appropriating a beer bottle from the next table. He snaps his fingers, and the beer bottle is now cold, and filled with beer. Dean raises an eyebrow, tips his own bottle towards the oldster, and sips appreciatively. 

They watch the business around them for a moment, not saying anything, before Dean gets bored with silence. "Do I know you, old-timer, or are you just gonna sit here and butter my balls?"

The older guy chuckles. "Nope, never met you before, Sir Knight, although I have run across your name a time or two," he answers. "Never thought it'd be a Winchester sending some lil' titty-flasher up the river. Always pegged you boys for the types to, I dunno, buy a girl dinner first."

He certainly sounds familiar, and it doesn't take Dean long to figure out why: the demon's imitating Bobby's particular vague-south patois. And it _is_ an imitation, because he's being too careful with the words he uses. Dean decides that this guy's road is going to end the second he says the word "idjut". 

"I'm just a-wanderin' nearby here, just wanting to see what Hell's new Army of One can do," he continues, gesturing to the disrupted club around them. "And while I'm impressed with your general thrust, I gotta say I expected a few more fireworks from the King's new man."

"Heh." Dean swigs his beer. "You know who I was, right? What I was, what I did when I was ...before this happened?" He twists his right hand to show the Mark, like he's trying to show off a concealed weapon. "I got no need for Hunters on my tail, old man. Fireworks bring 'em quick. This'll take a couple weeks to get cleared up, and I don't have any plans to come back to Vancouver. By the time any hunters cotton on to what I did here, I'll be a dozen other places in no time."

"Used to be, we gather souls for the Pit, no matter what Hunters might be doin' nearby," the other demon replies. "Now, lil' whore they just wheeled outta here, she might be good for a couple years on the waiting list before the Gates, but I don't think she's gonna roast for eternity. Your john there, well, he was doin' the whole adultery-in-his-mind bit, so again, maybe not a fast-track to heaven anymore. I don't see a whole lotta corruptin' goin on around you."

The Blade is at the old man's neck in less than a heartbeat. "I got exactly no need for lectures, old man," Dean growls. "You wanna bust my balls or butter 'em, get in line, join the We Hate Winchester fan club down there, I don't care."

"I'm not ball bustin, Sir Knight," he quavers, hands up. "I'm just _sayin_ that things used to work different, and you, well, you seem like the kind of Knight that could get some of those old-fashioned workings going again in the Pit. No more of this...salesman retail crap. True terror. Real corruption. The melting of ten thousand souls into the tar of damnation..."

Dean barks a hollow laugh. "Again? Y'all can't think of nothin new? Abbaddon got ganked for runnin' against Crowley. Know how I know? I'm the one who ganked the bitch. And you're still trying to rally a mutiny against him? Shit, that's depressing." Dean drops the Blade back to his lap, waiting til the other demon has relaxed again before standing up. 

"Know what? I'm not going to kill you. I _am_ gonna tell Crowley he's still got a rebellion on his hands, and I'm probably going to be the one hunting you sonsabitches down. But I'm not gonna kill you this time." Instead, he downs the rest of his beer and swings the bottle across the other demon's face, banishing him with a thought at the same time. Black smoke pours through the falling broken glass, and Dean watches it funnel up through the ceiling and back to Hell. 

"Son of a bitch," he mutters to himself after a moment, and is gone.


	9. The More You Know

It's finished.

Well, it'd been finished a long time ago, but at east now it's back together. Superglue, Castiel has decided, is the pinnacle of human invention. The Angel Tablet is whole again, and while there has been no Prophet to complete its repair, Castiel can at least relax knowing that all of the pieces are together and in the right order. With Kevin Tran's notes transcribed, digitized, and collected, Castiel figures the Angel Tablet can be considered a complete artifact. There is an inherent relief in that thought. 

_"Castiel_."

His senses expanded with the restoration of grace, but apparently someone like Charlie can still sneak up on him. Cas almost drops his mended Tablet when her voice pokes into his reverie.

"Where's the Demon Tablet?"

"The—"

"The Demon Tablet," Charlie finishes patiently. Cas is...well, she's noticed times when he's definitely Castiel, Angel of Heaven, Righteous Soldier of God, etc etc etc. And then there are other times, increasingly frequent times, when he seems to slip back into _Cas_ , the distracted, very-short-short-term-memory result of an angel that had spent far too much time on Earth and, more specifically, in the company of the Winchesters. She has the idea that this has something to do with the whole business of grace and how Castiel lost his, but there are very few sources for information about angels and grace, and neither of them are sharing. 

"The Demon Tablet..." Cas repeats slowly, and sets the Tablet down on the table. He stands a little straighter, his brow furrowing, and Charlie knows now that he's back in Castiel mode. "The last known being to posess the Demon Tablet was Metatron, but it was not recovered before he was imprisoned in Heaven. Why do you ask?"

"We-elllllll....." Charlie slides into the chair next to him, setting her laptop on the library table. "The Angel Tablet contains a pretty big piece of spellwork, right? Sealing Heaven is a big fat hairy deal, and I know that when Dean and Sam were looking for a way to fight the Leviathans they found a clue in the Leviathan Tablet. I'm wondering if the Demon Tablet has something in it that might give us a clue to curing Dean's Mark. I've got Kevin's translations of half of the tablet--" she opened up her laptop, scrubbing a fingertip on the mousepad to wake it up and highlight a section of text on the screen. "Seems like there's _something_ there. Something big enough to be a cure for the Mark of Cain."

Castiel sighs, seeming to deflate. "There is a large working described there, yes, but it's nothing to do with the Mark," he explains. "The spell you're seeing is one that Dean and Sam tried two years ago, at the same time that Metatron was plotting to take over Heaven. This one was designed to seal Hell and banish all of its denizens from Earth."

Charlie stared at him for a moment. Castiel stared back.

And then..."Oh," Castiel said. 

++++

While they certainly _appear_ to burn, in reality, demons under capital punishment smell more like roasting paper than roasting flesh. Dean considers the four pillars of writhing flame before him, the last of the recidivists connected to the anti-Crowley movement. The old guy from the bar was on the end of the row, or he had been—these four were pretty much burned out. A lot of the interrogations had brought out expressions of belief that Dean, or Abbaddon, or really anyone else would be a better King of Hell than Crowley; typical rebellious rhetoric. _And_ bullshit, of course: the idea that any demon would support a _Winchester_ , out of all the sad sacks of meat on or below the Earth, as King of the Demons? Fucking ridiculous. 

Dean had simply listened, made sure a record was made, and snapped his fingers to start the burning: low-effort, high-efficiency political control of his boss' enemies. And that was how he wants it. There were no moral barriers to what needed to be done anymore, but that didn't mean Dean was going to go out of the way to further Hell's agenda. Torturing the stripper and the john had been in the interest of exploring his expanding powers. But running Hell? Way, way too much effort. 

"Ah, well done, Sir Knight," Crowley appears at his shoulder. "I trust that nips the bud off this flowering little rebellion?"

"Sure. Yeah. Nipped in bud." Dean stretches and turns to face Crowley, sketching a poor salute before doing the little mental flip that lets him teleport to...anywhere else. Except he can't.

"Ah ah ah," Crowley chides softly, ticking a finger towards him. "You and I need to have a little chat, Sir Knight. Tell me, what did you know about these fellows?"

"These guys? Demons. All of 'em. Guy on the end there was pretty old, but nobody else really stood out."

"I see." Crowley squints at him. "And you'd never spoken with any of them before? Or any of their friends?"

"Demons have friends?" Dean sighs at Crowley's expression. "Fine. No, I hadn't, and all their friends burned just before they did. First I'd talked to him was last weekend."

Without preamble, Dean is picked up by the throat and flung against the wall. He passes through the diminishing flames on the way, and stars flash in his eyes as the back of his head impacts the cavern wall. Dean thrashes but there's nothing to grab, and nothing he can think of releases the grip around his neck. It's as though he has no powers at all.

"You after my throne, Dean?" Crowley growls softly. 

Dean free-falls to the floor, gasping. His palms are scraped and the knees of his jeans are ripped; he can feel gravel digging into his shins. 

Dean bursts out laughing. This is the first time he's laughed in months. Diabolical chuckles, evil sniggering, sure, but deep, spontaneous laughter has been completely absent. It hurts his throat and chest, but the pain is worth it—payment for the release. 

"Your job sucks, Crowley," he says when he can finally breathe again. "All I ever wanted, _ever_ , was to get rid of every fucking one of you. Came pretty damn close a couple years ago, and then...this." He gestures to himself, expression souring. "Demons killed my parents. Demons killed me, took my soul, killed my brother, and have fucked up pretty much every aspect of my life since I was four years old. _King of Hell_? Gimme a fuckin' break. I got no choice about what I am now," he finished, "but I'm sure as shit not bucking for a promotion."

Crowley actually smiles. "Good," he purrs. "That was my expectation, but I also wanted to assuage my suspicions." (Dean has never actually heard anyone say the word _assuage_ , and has only ever seen it written once or twice. It takes a minute before he realizes what Crowley means.) Everything the King of Hell has done to him so far has been effortless, and raising him off the ground seems to take even less strain. His hands are healed; his jeans, restored to their original state. "I will take your allegiance by laziness, Dean, in the absence of outright opposition. Do you decide to move against me, and we return to our old state of delicious enmity, remember today. Remember that this isn't _even_ the tip of the iceberg of things I can do to you with a single thought."

Unwise it may be, but Dean snorts. "Go ahead. Put me out of my misery."

"I'd love to, darling, but we need each other," Crowley reminds him. "Moose and Bird-brain will be coming for us-- for _you_ \--soon enough, I'm sure, and I have the feeling that, nihilistic tendancies aside, your talent for survival is going to serve you well in spite of it all. Tell me," Crowley conjures an image in the air, "what you know about these two."

Dean smiles reflexively: one of the people in the picture is Charlie. Her hair's much shorter, teased out into wild spikes, and a white scar stands out even paler than the skin against her jawbone, but it's Charlie. She's got two strange guns slung over her hips, monstrous things that shouldn't be handguns but can't be anything else for the way they're holstered. 

The other person isn't familiar at all: brown skinned, with wildly curling brown hair and the build of a boxer, this other woman and Charlie are frozen in tableau as though they are arguing, or discussing something. They are dressed as Dean and Sam used to, in jeans, serviceable jackets, and practical shirts and shoes. 

"We know Charlie Bradbury, of course," Crowley begins, "and we know that at one point she made the dimensional jump to the fabled Oz of the Wizard and Emerald City. She's been back on our side of the door for three or four months. This other one, though, showed up when our scouts tried to enter the Men of Letters Bunker a few weeks ago, and in that time when your Charlie's shown up outside, so has this one. Notice anything about her?"

Dean has, but it's...he can't put his finger on it. It's not exactly visible on her, not in the way that demonic energy swirls around the head of one posessed, or the way angelic grace shines from a vessel's neck and chest. "She ain't...human," Dean ventures.

"Quite right. Well, half-right, anyways. This one is a nephilim."

Dean searches his memory, but it's not a monster he's encountered before, and he says so. "That's because there weren't supposed to be any of them left," Crowley answers. "They're half-angels, half-human. Incredibly rare since Big Brother put the moratorium on Earthly conjugal visits for the Heavenly Helpers. _Most_ of them were killed during the later seventeenth century. We didn't think that there were any left."

Now Dean can almost see it: the woman has an aura, barely perceptible against the background of the image. It is colorless, just a brightening of the air around her. Human eyes wouldn't be able to sense it.

"The spell that sealed Heaven had a very specific list of ingredients," Crowley goes on. "The bow of a cupid, and the heart of a nephilim. Since this one is walking around and talking with dear little Charlie, we can assume she still has her heart; therefore, there are more nephilim still on earth. And do you know what _we_ could do with the heart of a nephilim?"

"No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me," Dean answers absently. He is still staring at the image of Charlie. It's amazing to think how much he's missed her. And she's been back all this time? He's been a terrible friend for not seeing her since she returned. 

"I will, yes, once I decide which one we're going to focus on," Crowley snaps, obviously irritated at Dean's lack of focus on him. "And if one is good, certainly more would be better. Don't you think it would be helpful if your friend Charlie could introduce you to her new nephil-buddy, and maybe help you find her kith and kin?"

"You know, Crowley," Dean answered, "that's a pretty great idea."

++++

He'd made a big deal about leaving, like Metatron's footsteps would be so hard to retrace—but the guy had only been moving around for the last two years or so, and had spent millenia prior to the meeting the Winchesters in one place in New Mexico. It wasn't like he was going to have a huge store of hiding places to look. But Castiel had kitted himself out and built it up like he'd be gone for months looking for a likely place that Metatron had hidden the Demon Tablet and the completed translation. 

Charlie is washing the blood off her hand—having been the one to perform the angel-banishing spell—when Nisha sidles back into the kitchen. "New lead on the spell?" She asks as Charlie hangs the towel back over the oven door handle. 

"Maybe. A plan B for sure," she answers. "If we can't find a way to reverse the Mark, we can lock everyone evil in Hell for at least a little while. Sort of the same thing that happened to the angels, but I guess the steps are more complicated and harder. Castiel says Sam almost died last time they tried it."

"And this is what we consider a _good_ idea?"

"Like I said, it's plan B."

They're quiet for a moment together; Charlie pulls a bottle of juice out of the fridge and sips meditatively while Nisha halfheartedly looks throught the cupboards, unsure if she wants anything. She settles for pulling out a box of teabags and setting the kettle on the stove to heat. 

"You're not saying anything," she says suddenly, turning back to Charlie. Charlie gulps down her juice and coughs a little, caught off guard.

"Um, huh?" _cough_. "Not saying anything about what?"

"About what a great guy Castiel is. About how helpful and strong he is and how lucky your side is to have him helping out. That kind of thing."

Charlie sets the empty bottle down on the counter, carefully. "Is that the kind of thing i should be saying?" She asks slowly. Nisha only shrugs, glaring a challenge with her arms crossed over her chest. "Well, I'm not gonna," Charlie says in reply. "I'm not going to ask you to make nice with the guy who killed--"

" _Murdered._ "

"—your sister," Charlie finishes doggedly. "It was wrong of me to do so before, and I'm sorry that I did. Only thing I can tell you is that for the time I've known him, Cas has been a good guy. Your mileage may vary."  
"Well, it _does_." Nisha pushes off the counter with her hip, beginning to pace the kitchen. 

"Look, Nisha, I get that you want the whole time-reversal thing to work, just like we do," Charlie says, "but being around Castiel is obviously not your idea of a good time. What...I mean, why...what's keeping you here?"

Nisha's glare becomes withering. "Really, Charlie? I expected you to have figured it out by now."

"Well, I've kind of been dealing with this whole _learn the physics of spellcasting all by yourself, Charlie, and get it right the first time if you don't want to blow yourself and your friends to itty bitty bits_ -thing, thanks for noticing."

"I know," Nisha retorts. "And you still don't know why I'm here?" Her expression softens. "Basic D&D, Charlie. Spells need spell ingredients."

Charlie gets it—with a sickening lurch in her belly, she gets it—but in shock, her face goes blank, and Nisha takes it the wrong way. Her exit is noisy, for all that the kitchen doesn't have a door to slam, and brings Sam down the hall. He is frowsy with the interruption of his nap—he'd been chasing leads online all night, and had only fallen asleep around dawn—but at the look on Charlie's face his sleepiness clears, and his face settles into its accustomed scowl of worry.

"Charlie, hey, what happened?" Sam asks, crossing quickly to her, and Charlie looks up at him just as the kettle begins to whistle. Sam quickly turns off the stove and knocks the kettle over to a cool burner before turning back to Charlie and wrapping an arm around her shoulder. 

"We need power for the spell, Sam," Charlie whispers, cringing into his side. "We need a lot of power, and Nisha--"

"Does she know where to get it?" Sam interrupts. The nephil girl has been at the Bunker for weeks and barely spoken a whole sentence to Sam. As much as he appreciates her presence as an implied layer of protection, Nisha is still a cipher to him. 

Part of it is Charlie explaining things to Sam, but a large portion of what follows is Charlie forcing her brain to wrap itself around the truth. "We have sigils and verses that we think will work for casting the spell. We have the timing and the sequence right. But we need power, right? We need a _lot_ of power. We need an _unheard-of amount_ of magical, unearthly power, and it needs to come from above and below in equal amounts.

"Power can come from...beings, right? Belief builds up power, and so we get gods. Time builds up power, and so we get strong ancient beings like angels, who also have belief on their side. Rarity builds up power, so there are artifacts like...like the staff of Moses, and the bones of saints, and the Tablets of God's Word... 

"They're supposed to be extinct, but we know that the _heart_ of a nephil is strong enough to seal the Gates of Heaven. How much more rare is the remaining heart of the last nephil on earth? How freaking powerful an _artifact_ is the living heart of the last nephil on earth? The last one to ever exist?"

Sam gasps, hugging Charlie tighter. She can feel her eyes start to tear up. 

"You'd need something to balance it out," Sam murmurs after a while. "The spell needs balanced power or else it'll go all over the place."

"How?"

"Nephilim are half-angel...."

"Are we honestly talking about killing someone we _know_ , Sam? Is that what we're talking about now?" Charlie shoves away from him, stumbling a step away to grip the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Even in her distress, a part of her brain is keeping a commentary running: _better lighting and a fog machine and you'd have yourselves a damn good telenovela going right now,_ it says, and oddly enough the voice sounds like Dorothy's. 

"We're talking about _saving Dean_ , Charlie. Saving Dean and undoing a whole buttload of evil that's been done in the meantime. Saving Dean, and Kevin, and every angel who fell in the faction wars, and even Nisha's sister."

"Saving Dean." She echoes.

"Exactly."

"And that's worth it?" She turns to face him again, entirely calm. "Killing the very last member of an ancient, unearthly race just so Dean can come home? Your brother's worth murdering for?"

Sam glowers at her, but he sets his jaw and says, "Yes."

And this, Charlie realizes, is a thing that is never going to change: worse, if the spell succeeds, there will be no lesson learned in the new timeline to serve as a preventative from this line of thinking. This is the fatal Winchester flaw. To her boys, there is no price to high to pay for the preservation of each others' lives. There never has been, and there never will be. 

It takes a few seconds to realize she's talking. "He's killed people. Stolen from folks who did nothing to deserve it. He's destroyed peoples' lives, Sam. So have you. He's brought curses and demons and a hell of a lot more shit down on Earth than was ever meant to be here, and what we're really talking about is giving the pair of you a second chance at fucking things up." The tears are falling now. "I can't make that decision, Sammy—I can't--"

She can't be here, not right now. The Bunker is a sealed, enclosed system, and she's breathing air that's been recycled for decades. Old man's air, she thinks, full of dust mites and fifty-year-old rhinovirus and the ashes of demons and dried flowers. Before she realizes exactly what she's doing, Charlie has bolted, slamming through doors and down the hall to the garage, grabbing the Frog's keys without a second thought. Sam, she notes bitterly, does not seem to have followed her.

As soon as she clears the culvert drain she cranks the window down, gulping clean, damp air, practically hanging her head out the car window in an effort to suck down as much oxygen as will fit in her lungs. She's weaving over the lines a bit, and takes a second to correct her course. Old habit has her turned towards town, and over the course of the forty-minute drive Charlie's heart slows to a dull, aching thump, a perfect match to the sandpapery ruin of her sinuses and nose. There is a clarity that comes with grief, and Charlie's just about there; her brain is refusing the set of decisions laid before it, and is insisting, instead, that she think of something else—anything else—for a while. 

Distance. Perspective. Objectivity. These are good things. Know what else is good? Coffee is good. So are french fries. So is pie. 

The Denny's parking lot is almost deserted, and Charlie is grateful for the serendipity that has gotten her here between two of the meal rushes. Her wallet and phone were safely tucked in her pockets; at least she could do a little meaningless web browsing—maybe Pinterest, maybe Tumblr—and chew her greasy slices of Americana, and forget her worries for a while.

The waitress leads her towards the back of the restaurant without a word. They must be short on servers; the place is empty save for a trio of guys at a table in the opposite corner. Charlie eyes the men, and is about to tell the waitress that she'd be happy with a spot at the counter, when all three of the men in the booth swivel in their seats to stare directly at her. 

Their eyes are flat, pupilless black. 

"Charlie!" Dean cries, with genuine gladness, and scoots out of the booth with his arms out, to give her a hug.


	10. God Helps Those Who

It is an embarrassingly short trip. 

Cas had worked it out prior to departing, his mind mapping out a route with the speed and efficiency of an angel's mind: he'd start at Metatron's last known dwelling and work backwards, ransacking each with every investigative sense at his command before moving on to the next. He'd leave no stone unturned, exploit as many human minds and eyes and hands as necessary to find the Demon Tablet and anything else Metatron had lying around. 

He appeared in the street outside the apartment building where Metatron's human alias, Marv, had an apartment. Apparently back-rent wasn't an issue, because Metatron hadn't been around to pay the bills for almost a year at this point, and Marv's name was still on the buzzer outside the front door. He can't just teleport up; makes sense, of course, that Metatron would have warded the building against angelic incursions. The doorman lets him in, informing him that the elevator is broken. He takes the stairs: it's only three flights. 

Two angels are stationed outside an apartment door, and offer Castiel no resistance as he approaches, although he pauses before the door. They are both wearing suits and dark glasses. 

"Castiel," the angel on the left greets him.

"Timothy," Cas replies warily. 

No one moves.

"Are you here to search Metatron's dwelling?" the other angel asks finally.

"I am."

The other angel reaches over, twists the doorknob, and swings the door open.

Cas looks from one to the other, his nerves humming. The hilt of his angel blade is in his hand, and the blade is concealed up his sleeve. Someone has to move first, and it's not going to be him.

The second angel looks at him. "Well?"

"..."

"You are allowed in, Castiel," Timothy says finally, still staring straight ahead. "You posess Metatron's grace, and therefore his dwellings and belongings have passed to you. We have not been instructed to keep you from searching his dwellings, only to guard them from humans and those not of Heavenly origin."

This is too easy.

"Why....what?" Cas manages finally.

The other angel—Elliott, Cas discovers then—broadcasts directly into his mind. _Humans are often here in search of permission to rent this apartment, or to steal things that belonged to Marv,_ he explains. Via this form of communication, lying is unneccesary and nearly impossible. _Angels are here to ....sight-see, I believe is the term. There is nothing of use to us here, but as Metatron's putative heir, you are welcome to whatever you wisht to take._

_And if I take an artifact of great value?_

_Do you mean the Demon Tablet?_ Timothy asks.

_Ye-es..._

_It's between the mattress and box spring in the bedroom,_ Timothy answers. _It is still broken, and there are no Prophets to restore it. Archaeolgically I suppose it might hold some interest, but it's inherent power is gone. By all means, remove it._

Cas takes a risky step forward, standing in the doorway between the two of them, but neither moves. He steps again, into the apartment, and again, neither moves.

 _Would you like us to close the door_? Elliott asks. 

"Sure," Cas replies, and the other angel reaches over to pull the door shut with a soft click. 

The Tablet is, just as Timothy said, wedged between the portions of Metatron's single bed. He had wrapped it in a towel and slid it between the covers of an empty three -ring binder, but other than that, treated it as just another lump of rock. Which is exactly what it was, Cas admits—archaeologically interesting, yes, but without a Prophet, its powers restored, or a way to mend it, it is, in fact, just a lump of rock. 

Marv's apartment is a rat's nest—appropriate enough, Cas figures, for the rat that had last occupied it. He _had_ intended to look around, to test the limits of the permissions Timothy and Elliott had given him, but the disarray and, frankly, the smell of the place are quick to dissuade him. He is picking his way back over piles of discarded clothing and moulding plates when something _calls_ to him.

It's a little like Angel Radio, but instead of a distinct angelic voice, it rings like a soft chime in his heart. Instinctively Castiel knows that this is not something anyone else has or will ever hear, because it's not meant for anyone else.

Tucked up inside the cabinet of an old stereo-turntable, duct-taped to the underside of a shelf, is a small crystalline vial, with a bluish-silver swirl slowly wafting back and forth inside. The vial sings with a gentle hum as he holds it; distantly he is reminded of Tibetan singing bowls, although this tone is one that vibrates directly with him, causing his very marrow to harmonize. He closes a gentle hand around the vial containing his grace, presses it to his breast, and lets his tears fall. 

 

++++

The hug doesn't _feel_ evil, although Charlie's nerves are screaming and she's just barely not shaking with terror as Dean enfolds her, resting his chin atop her head like...like Dean used to do. He doesn't squeeze or lock his arms around her, but Charlie can feel that his strength is _exponential_ to what it used to be, and even if she fought to within an inch of her life all he'd have to do is hold her until her heart burst from exhaustion and terror. So Charlie forces herself to breathe, and to stop her limbs from trembling, and to bring her arms up to return Dean's embrace. 

And you know what? It's _nice_. Her brain retreats to safety, briefly ignoring the fact that he's a demon, and concentrating instead on how great it is to see a guy she's secretly considered her brother for a long, long time. She's missed Dean, as much as she missed Sammy, and even if things aren't the same and probably never will be again it's so nice to just _pretend_ for a minute. 

"There's my girl," Dean murmurs, releasing her and stepping back to look her in the face. "How's things goin, kiddo? Got a minute or two to have a drink with me?" He gestures to the booth and Charlie frowns. There's still a pair of demons sitting there, both glaring with disappointment and menace at her and, more tellingly, at Dean.

"Oh yeah, I gotcha," he says, as though she'd spoken aloud, and as he raises a hand and snaps his fingers Charlie realizes he's easily read her thoughts. The two demons both disappear without so much as a farewell puff of smoke, and it's just the pair of them and the waitress. The waitress brings over a pot of coffee and a bowl of creamers and sugars, as if Charlie's given her her order already. A shiver runs up her spine. 

"Lookin' good, kiddo," Dean says as they slide into the booth. He waves a hand towards Charlie's head. "I like the short hair, but what's this?" He draws a thumb down his own unshaven jaw, echoing the scar across Charlie's right side. "Is that from Oz? How'd all that turn out?"

Charlie raises a hand to the white line. "This is—um, yeah, this one's from Oz. One of my first engagements outside the Ruby City, I got into a disagreement with a Talking Badger. Well, I _say_ disagreement, but they more like ambushed us, you know?" And from there, nothing will do but for Charlie to tell Dean everything about the Oznian War, just like she'd told Sam. She avoids mentioning Sam, though.

"Holy shit." Dean whistles. "That takes guts, Charlie, just walkin' away like that? Guts and brains, like I've obviously never had." He gestures to himself. "How many chances did I have to walk away and didn't take 'em? And look where that's got me."

Charlie has no idea how to respond to that, not in any safe, appropriate way. But this is Dean, so she asks recklessly, "Not loving the new job, then?"

Dean barks out a laugh. "Nope, not lovin' it at all. Sure, there's perks--" and the waitress arrives with their food, even though no one actually ordered anything. Here's the chili fries and chocolate-strawberry milkshake Charlie had been thinking about; Dean has a steak, fairly bloody, and an actual split-open lobster tail sitting next to it with a loaded baked potato. Charlie's pretty sure Denny's has never ever once had lobster on their menu. The sight of Dean's surf-n-turf brings the situation back into unwelcomed sharp focus: he's read her mind, he's changed bits of reality in this area to suit himself. Charlie is quite abruptly not hungry. 

Dean, on the other hand, literally tears into his meal, picking up the steak with both hands and ripping a huge chunk of flesh off with his teeth, making this primal, slobbering racket that practically echoes through the empty restaurant. It's like watching a hungry, angry baby with teeth. 

He catches her staring. "Oh, oops," he says, with a sheepish half-smile. "Manners, polite company, all that. I forgot." He wipes his fingers on his shirt and grease stains fail to appear; and suddenly his meal is whole and untouched, a napkin is tucked into his collar, and there's a fork and a knife in his hands. "C'mon, Charlie, dig in," he says, before slicing a prim square of steak and taking a neat bite.

Charlie picks up her fork, spears a chili-cheese fry, and bites into it unenthusiastically.

 

++++

Castiel appears in the room he'd claimed in the Bunker and closes his sigil-board, tucking it back into his coat pocket before picking a towel up off the bedstand to wipe his bloody hand. His grace sings quietly to him from the pocket of his pants, and he reaches in quickly to close his hand around it, feeling the warmth of completeness pulse briefly in his palm. He sighs, then removes the three-ring binder from his coat and places the coat on the bed.

Nisha is in the kitchen when he arrives, and he steps back from the doorway upon seeing her, not wanting to cause another scene. She is clearly and permanently on edge around him and Castiel deeply regrets the circumstances that have made her that way. She sees him, scowls, but does not move to leave the kitchen.

"I'm looking for Charlie," he says, holding up the binder. "Is she still here?"

"No," Nisha answers. "She and Sam had a spat—that girl's always fightin' wit' someone. She ran off about half an hour ago. _You_ had'nt been gone nearly long enough."

"It was an easier task than I anticipated." Cas replies, sending his thoughts searching for Sam and Charlie. "Charlie isn't in the Bunker," he realizes.

Nisha snorts. "I _know_. I just told you that. She'll be back, sure, in an hour or so once she's cooled off."

"What did she and Sam fight about?" Cas wants to know.

"Same thing she and I was arguin' over. Why I'm sticking around til this folly's done."

They stare at each other for a long time; Nisha doesn't have to explain it to him. Finally he holds up the binder again, then takes out the Demon Tablet. "Maybe this will help."

"Charlie called it your plan B. Plans B usually only happen after Plans A have failed, meanin' you still gotta go through with Plans A."

"Maybe we don't have to. Maybe we can move Plan B up to A."

Nisha shakes her head, bronze curls bouncing. " 'S a band-aid over a bullet hole, Castiel, and you knows it. So do I. T'won't fix your boy Dean, and t'won't get Jane back for me. I'm willing to do my part, sure, but only s'long as y'all knows what you're about beforehand. I ent gonna play Isaac til we're sure this is going to work right, and work right the first time."

"We've got a ways to go before we figure out how to work it," Cas reminds her.

"Yeah, and that's why you don't see me havin' the same breakdown as poor Charlie. I gots a while before I should need to worry about my fate."

Sam enters just then, and does a double take—whether it's to see Castiel back so early, or to see Castiel and Nisha talking, calmly, in the kitchen, is unclear. "Uh, hey guys. Has anyone seen Charlie?"

"She's gone a half hour ago, Sam," Nisha replies, just as Castiel says, "She's not in the Bunker." Nisha glares daggers at Castiel. 

 

++++

Dean has polished off his surf-n-turf, three slices of cheesecake, and is now on his fourth slice of pie. This ones blackberry, and the juice drooling along the edge of Dean's plate is bloody-bruise colored and making Charlie feel a little sick in sympathy. She is also feeling sick to her stomach: no matter how much she ate, her plate of chili-cheese fries remained full, and whenever she'd pause in eating Dean would look at her and say, "C'mon, Charlie, clean plate club!" and she'd resume eating. She didn't want to—Dean wanted her to, and he wanted to see her enjoy every minute of this creepy-ass lunch date they were having. So even as Charlie's belly groaned and she began to belch and the acidic taste in the back of her mouth grew more and more persistent, she'd stuffed in cheese-fries one after another, and smiled, and bit back the urge to vomit.

She finally catches a break when the waitress comes over to refill their drinks and whisper something in Dean's ear. Charlie shovels two huge forkfuls of fries into her mouth, chews and swallows and forces them to stay down, and then when Dean looked back at her plate, waves her hands over it. "Seriously, no, I'm full, I can't eat another bite," she insists, and this time Dean believes her. He pushes his own plate away.

"So glad," he sighs. "I was just tryin' to keep up with you, kiddo. Thought you'd have me split my pants before you quit. Isn't Sammy feeding you at the Bunker?"

The frission that races up her spine makes Charlie queasy. Before she can think up an answer, Dean leans forward, removing the napkin from his collar. "C'mon, Charlie, you haven't said a word, but I know where the hell we are. I used to live around here, you know," he adds, belching. The smell is _foul_ and Charlie coughs, trying not to gag. Dean notices—how could he not, with the noises she's making?--and grins, as though Charlie's just goofing around. "Mmmm, brimstone," he chuckles. Charlie forces herself to swallow again, even though it feels like there's a brick in her stomach, covered in hot sauce, and she can practically still feel that last mouthful of fries just below her collarbone. _Please stay there_ , she begs silently. 

"Where were we? Oh yeah, you were just about to tell me Sammy's plans for 'saving' me," Dean makes air quotes. "I know he has one. Hell, it might even be a good one, if he's got Cas still puppydogging around. So what's the plan, stan?"

Charlie has to say something: she can feel it. She wonders, as her belly churns around all those chili-cheese fries and she struggles against Dean's imperative, whether or not she has a choice in _what_ she says.

"We're going to seal Hell," Charlie answers. "The—the spell you guys used, with the Demon Tablet. We're going to try again."

Dean raises an eyebrow and gazes at her, as though searching for something. "That's not a _bad_ one, as these things go," he allows, finally, and Charlie feels as though someone who has been tugging the collar of her t-shirt tight around her neck has, finally, let go. She tries not to make too much noise as she sucks a deep breath in through her mouth and breathes everso slowly out through her nose. 

"So no luck saving me, huh? Well, I'm not surprised. Cain hisownself lived with this thing for six thousand years, and never found a way to wipe it out. I guess I was hoping for too much, even with you in the game, kiddo. I know you tried."

"So...so you _do_ want us to save you, right?"

"Not really, but I guess hope is a force of habit, right?" His smile is sad and a little forced. "Look, Charlie, it was a good plan. A better one than most, I'm sure. But one of you is gonna have to die to make it happen, and I'm not okay with it being either you or Sammy, you understand? Think of something else to do with your time. Don't waste it on me."

"It's not a _waste_ , Dean--"

"Charlie." There's no command that stops her, just the look of absolute resignation on his face. "Do you understand where I am right now? Do you understand how this has happened? This is all me. This is fate. Destiny. Whatever the hell you want to call it, there's nowhere else I was ever gonna end up. I pushed against it for a long-ass time, but this was always gonna happen. Hell, I _saw_ this, right after my dad died. From the first time I made a deal with a crossroads demon, this was always going to happen." 

He sits back in the booth, toying with one of the spoons on the table. "Door's closed. Quit runnin' yourselves up against it. Get on with your lives, and tell Sammy I said to do the same." The spoon, almost predictably, is bending itself backwards and forwards. Charlie watches it because she can't think of anything else to say. 

"And since when has Moose ever listened to you?" Another voice asks, sounding like gravel in honey, and Charlie jumps, scrabbling against the booth seat as Crowley, King of Hell, saunters through the restaurant. A chair pops into being at the end of their table and he sits down, smiling malevolently. Charlie knows him by description-- _middling height, British, very distinctive voice_ , Cas had said—but she'd suspect his nature anywhere, given the waves of _malice_ and _desire_ that are emanating from him. Charlie hasn't been attracted to a man in...well, in her whole life, but being this close to Crowley sets her nerves singing the horny song of lust, even as her stomach continues to churn. Now she's getting uncomfortably warm, and she knows that there are splotches of hot color on her cheeks. Again comes the practical and well-focused desire to vomit. 

"Turn it down, Crowley, will ya?" Dean has noticed her discomfort. "I'm sure Charlie's suitably impressed by your hellish majesty and whatnot." The air around her face cools, at least, and the pressure her gut's putting on her throat eases fractionally. 

"My apologies, Miss Bradbury," Crowley purrs, and his smile is gentler. "There are times that I forget myself, I'm sure you understand."

Charlie nods, eyes darting from Dean to the King of Hell. Sitting there. At Denny's. Middle of the afternoon. She'd wonder when her life got so fucked up, but she knows for a fact it was shortly after she went to work at Dick Roman Enterprises. Still, this is the weirdness bar, setting itself higher. 

"Something you need, Crowley?" Dean grates. 

"You sent your escort back without you. They told _me_ you were having lunch with a pretty redhead. I _like_ redheads. Thought I'd pop in to see if you were....staying the course, so to speak." Crowley eyes Charlie the whole time. It's like mud trickling down behind her eyes, only warmer, slower, and so much more uncomfortable. "So tell me, Miss Bradbury, what fun and interesting things we should know about your gal-pal, the nephilim."

"The—the what?" Charlie doesn't have to pretend to be caught off-guard; between _terror, indigestion,_ and _revulsion_ , she's running out of power to process weird shit, and weird shit just keeps turning up. 

"The nephil, Charlie. The half-angel girl with the adorable curls with whom you've been playing house for the past two weeks or so. You know exactly what I'm talking about, and you're going to _tell us the truth_ about her." The command carries the same kind of power that Dean's imperatives do: Charlie's already opening her mouth to speak. 

 

++++

Nisha frowns at her phone; Charlie's number isn't even ringing through, just playing the old "disconnected" tone that landlines used to when you dialed the wrong number. Sam has tried tracking the GPS on her phone, but apparently the Winchesters pulled that trick one time too many and Charlie has managed to disable it. It's been almost three hours. 

Sam has a sheaf of papers in hand and is peering at part of the Demon Tablet, as though trying to match any of the glyphs to the translations Kevin Tran completed. Nisha shakes her head, "It's not going to work that way, Sam."

"Huh?" He looks up, and Nisha is temporarily mesmerized by the shampoo-commercial movement of his hair. 

"You're not going to be able to make sense of it. The letters don't always correspond to another letter; sometimes a symbol means a complete word, or punctuation, or phrasing," Nisha explains. "Plus the symbols don't go in any kind of linear order. They appear to the Prophet in the order in which they need to be read."

"How do you know that?" Sam asks. There's no doubt in his question, just curiosity. 

Nisha shrugs. "I lived next-door to Edgar Cayce for a while. Not a bad guy, but he and his family kept such odd hours."

"Wait, Edgar Cayce the psychic?"

"No, Edgar Cayce the general contractor. Yes, the psychic. He was a Prophet, at least while he lived in Kansas."

"I remember that," Castiel puts in. "Connection to the Word overwhelmed the natural barriers the human mind puts up to control the flow of divine energy. His visions began to occur whenever he closed his eyes, and he saw too much. His successor had to be called up early."

Sam stares at both of them for a moment—not only shocked at the revelations about Cayce, but that Nisha and Castiel are sharing information without the usual added threats of death and dismemberment that Nisha throws in.

"Are you finding anything in the translation that will help with the spell to undo time?" Nisha asks, bringing Sam back to the moment. 

"Uh—no, I mean, not yet," Sam stammers, glancing down at Kevin's papers in his hands like he forgot he'd been holding them. Which he totally had. "No, I know Charlie's got some basics laid out, but I wanted to talk to her first and see if she can spot a piece in here that's useful. I mean, she's the one who's totally got her head wrapped around this thing."

"Sure, sure." Nisha draws a sheet out from the bundle Sam's holding, eyes scanning Kevin's chickenscratch paragraphs. "I suppose these might be more useful typed, right?"

"Could be," Sam replies, and hands the papers over when she holds out her hands. "You sure you can read all that?"

"Oh yeah," Nisha says absently. "The '50s and '60s were my secretarial years. I'm pretty good at deciphering ugly handwriting." She wanders off towards the library, and a few moments later Cas and Sam hear the thudding clack of one of the many ancient typewriters being forced back into service. 

"She seems okay with this whole thing," Sam ventures.

"Which 'she', Nisha or Charlie?" Cas asks.

"Nisha. I know for a fact that Charlie's not okay with it at all."

"I suppose being the last of one's race can make the prospect of death somewhat appealing, especially if there's a chance of reuniting with family and no memory of the end," Cas muses. "How are _you_ holding up, Sam?"

"I'm, uh...." Sam exhales loudly, pulling his hands through his hair. He wonders if he needs a haircut. "I guess I'm just here. I mean, this whole circus act doesn't exactly get easier every time, but this also isn't our first rodeo. The world's not ending—yet, I suppose—so thats a nice change."

"Have you given any thought to stopping? Giving up? Retiring, as it were?"

"You know what? After this is done, if I'm still breathing on the other side, I might actually give it a shot. Find a house. Get a dog. Date." He chuckles. "Maybe see if there's some old-student scholarship to let me go back to law school."

"That is a nice plan," Cas observes. "...you could start it sooner rather than later."

Sam gives Cas a suspicious side-eye. "How...what do you mean? I don't even see how thats possible. We're not _done_ yet."

"We wouldn't have to start, Sam." Cas turns to face him, and reaches into his coat. He holds out his hand, closed in a fist around something. "Metatron's been neutralized. Crowley hasn't made a major move in months. We're down in terms of strength, but Nisha could make a powerful ally if we give her enough time. Back down, Sam. Go back to hunting monsters and saving people from them. Heaven and Hell can fight their battles without us." He opens his hand, and Sam beholds the most beautiful little glass jar he's ever seen. It could be made of cut diamond, and inside there's a drifting shape--

"Cas," he whispers. "Is that --"

"Yes." He closes a protective fist around the vial once more, and Sam looks up at him, wide-eyed. "Sam, once Metatron's grace runs out, we can restore mine. I can rejoin Heaven, maybe not as a seraphim, but certainly as a lesser angel or even a reaper. A cupid, perhaps. I could make my way back into eternity and obscurity. You can go back to school. _Charlie_ can go back to school. Nisha...she wouldn't have to die, that's for certain." He pauses, and looks away. "Think about it, Sam."

++++

"Well, you may not have plans for your little friend, Miss Bradbury, but I certainly do," Crowley retorts angrily when Charlie finishes her dazed report. "And you, my little poppy-flower, are going to either bring her to us, or bring us to her." He snaps his fingers and the waitress appears, even as Dean growls, "Knock it off, Crowley, and leave the kid alone."

" _What_ did you just say to me?" Crowley snarls, turning on Dean. Charlie's gut has turned to lead by now and she feels cemented to the seat, and as a wave of heat blasts across the short distance separating Crowley and Dean, crisping the paper napkins left on the table. Dean's bent spoon flares in a red-hot twist. Dean himself is blasted back as the booth seat begins to melt and sag around him; the skin on his face blisters, pustules rising from the scarlet skin around them. Once again, Charlie's stomach tries to rebel. This time, the waitress' hand clamps over Charlie's mouth, the other hand knotted in her hair. Charlie is forced to look into her wide, blackened eyes, and she screams a muffled fifth as the waitress opens her mouth and black smoke pours out.

"No--!" Dean shouts, and either he breaks the blast or Crowley relents because he is off the melting seat, his ruined face healing itself (and if Charlie could look, she'd see that this process is just as unsightly as the initial injury) even as the demon seeks entry into Charlie, swirling around her head in a black malestrom. Suddenly the waitress is flung back, the black cloud clinging to her face as she skids on her ass across the floor. 

Charlie finally gives in and vomits onto the floor. As she heaves, Dean can see a blue whorl, stark against her pale skin, etched into the skin at the nape of her neck. It is a pentagram inside a flaming circle, the same shield he and Sammy got tattooed on their chests, once upon a time. His is now a blistered, puckered scar; Charlie's, it seems, is in perfect working order. 

Crowley has recoiled in disgust at the sudden reappearance of Charlie's three plates-full of chili-cheese fries plus milkshake, and Dean takes his chance. "Charlie, _run!_ " He bellows, throwing himself a Crowley like a left-tackle. The King of Hell disappears, teleporting away from the attack, and Charlie, pale and sweating, jerks her head up and launches herself out of the booth. 

The waitress lunges for her as she staggers past, getting a hold of one pant leg; with a jerk Charlie falls against a table, knocking it over. She scrabbles on the ground, coming up with the now-smashed salt and pepper shakers. Charlie flings it into the waitress-demon's face and the waitress screams and lets go of her; Charlie scrambles to her feet and out the door. 

Demons in the parking lot: a pair converge on Charlie as she sprints for the Frog, with its hatchful of weaponry and devils-traps etched into the roof liner. One is within arm's reach when she screams out the first verse of the exorcism, and he throws his head back with an unearthly screech as the black cloud boils from his open mouth. The second one is still running and Charlie completes the ritual, sparing a thought of sympathy for his host as the demon vacates him and the man he'd been riding skids to a stop on the blacktop, face-first.

_Open the door! Slide in! LOCK the door shit shit shit LOCK! Keys in the keys in the ignition keys keys keys--_

This is the second time that a Winchester has fallen out of the sky and landed on the hood of her car: Charlie screams again, white-hot panic, as Dean crashes onto the Frog. Crowley has thrown him through the front window of the restaurant and almost through the windshield. The engine still runs, though, and Dean is not dead. He lifts his head to stare at her through the spiderwebbed glass. There is blood on his teeth and running down his chin; his nose is definitely broken and his eyes are black marbles. 

" _Run_ , you little idiot," he rasps, loud enough for her to hear over the Frog's laboring engine, and his eyes clear. Charlie slams the gearshift into reverse and floors it; Dean rolls off the hood; Charlie shifts into drive, cranks the steering wheel around, and burns rubber out of the lot, rocketing down the road for the warded, bespelled, adamantine safety of the Bunker. The Frog's modified fuel system smells like burning french fries, but she cannot risk pulling over to dry-heave. She will not notice she is crying until the garage door is rolling shut behind her. 

"Test me," she demands, storming into the library. Sam, Cas, and Nisha are all there, Nisha's seated at a gorram _typewriter_ for fuck's sake, and staring at her like she's grown three more heads. "Fucking come on, Castiel, holy water and ash and silver and everything else. Test me, now."

"What. The. _Hell_ happened to you?" Nisha asks, rising from her chair; Cas is drawing a flask from one of the innumerable pockets in his trenchcoat. 

"Exactly," Charlie replies, and stands stoically for the splash of holy water in her face, courtesy of the angel. He hands over the flask—silver, she notes, and does not burn her hand—so that she can take a swig. It doesn't entirely take care of the aftertaste of chili-cheese-fry vomit, but it's a damn sight better than nothing. 

With a little scrambling, a silver knife and a baggie of oak, ash, and rowan ash is found; Charlie suffers a scrape from the first and ingests a pinch of the second, then walks over and through a devil's trap, just to be sure.

"And now you will explain," Nisha states, when everyone's relief has been expressed and Charlie has slumped into a chair.

"Well, my peeps," Charlie sighs—she is suddenly verging on exhausted, "allow me to give you the short list of reasons that we won't ever be able to go back to Denny's."


	11. Room to Breathe

The funny thing, Dean thinks, about having been human for so long, but with such a broad experience of all the myriad wonders Hell has to offer, is that his human perception of time isn't altered. He was awake and in pain for the full 40 years of his imprisonment, yet knew that his brother and Bobby would have only passed a year after he'd returned. Even now, he knows it has only been a week, maybe a day shy, since he had lunch with Charlie. And yet.

This time it's the little fucker, Ashtaroth, who is perched on the back of a hellhound. For the most part Dean's a cat person, but since his conversion he and the hellhounds have had something of an understanding. This one, though, commences to chewing on his feet almost immediately, bringing Ashtaroth to the foot of the slab on which he's chained. 

"Sir Knight," Ashtaroth hisses.

Dean coughs and gives the demon a brief nod. "Duke Ashtaroth," he rasps. The hellhound's teeth are like shards of glass; it's saliva is bubbling over his ruined toes like acid, and Dean is wracked with pain and does his best not to fling his body against the barbed restraints, but he doesn't really have control anymore. There is no part of him that is not in pain. There is no part of him that is not dying. 

Ashtaroth snaps his fingers, the sound sending daggers through Dean's skull—but the hellhound leaves off, grumbling as it releases his foot. Part of Dean's brain wonders, through the red-and-white haze of agony, how weird it is to feel air passing over exposed bone. Ashtaroth hops up onto the table beside him and seats himself on Dean's shoulder; the bastard's bony backside is covered in acid-tipped spines, and his asshole leaks, too. Dean tries his best to suppress a moan. 

"Have you thought any more about the King's offer?" Ashtaroth asks, almost conversationally. "Admit your sin against him and repent, and he will be merciful."

"Hav—haven't I told you--" Dean fights to get the words out around his remaining gritted teeth as Astharoth's acid etches lines down his shoulder, and the foul juice he emits follows in its wake. Pretty sure he can feel parasites wiggling into the rents in his skin. "Told you—yeah, I fucked up. Said that already."

"Yes, Sir Knight, you did," Ashtaroth answers gently, studying his claws. "At least once every one of the three hundred days you have been here. The King, however, feels that His Majesty is owed more than an admission of guilt; His Majesty wishes an apology. Do you understand?"

Three hundred days. That's why these chats with Ashtaroth have become routine; that's why the alternating days, when Belzebub winds his intestines around a red-hot poker, have become par for the course. That's two weeks in the mortal world. Two weeks.

"Are you not weary, Sir Knight?" Ashtaroth asks, flicking his barbed tail against the underside of Dean's chin. "Do you not wish surcease from these trials? Is there not something, anything else you'd prefer to be doing?" He leans even closer, brimstone breath crisping the hairs around Dean's ear. "Do you but give His Majesty what he wishes and your torment will end. I swear it."

And your torment will end. _Can_ it end? Hasn't it always been this way?   
_How did we get here, Kevin?_  
The first day...the first day was finger-and-toenails. The beds continue to bleed, even now. First bamboo splinters driven under, then the nails drawn out. One of His Majesty's favorites. Will they kill him? Will Ashtaroth heft the First Blade and slice off his head?   
There was the time of breaking bones, too. Ashtaroth became even smaller, small enough to crawl his infected little ass inside Dean's ear canal to shatter the three little bones. Belzebub laughed, counted each of the bones that they shattered. Two hundred and six.  
Will Crowley have him dismembered, his parts and pieces flung to the edges of the world with no hope of recovery?  
They let him heal for almost a week. His insides were on fire as the bones knit, but of course they laid them out wrong. His forearms would curve, if they'd have let them continue healing like that. After a week of inattention, of aching and groaning and being terrified to move, they'd come back, and his bones had been broken, one by one, all over again.

 _And your torment will end_. What a sweet promise: Death. Cain was still alive. Cain could kill him. Right? Had Dean....had Dean killed Cain? That wasn't possible, was it? Crowley had snuck him in, sure. Take back the Mark, and the Blade, and your mink, Crowley. Maybe then he can be out of this whole mess.   
He'd been sliced and ripped and cut with everything from silver butter knives to acid-etched shards of glass to chainsaws to claws and teeth and still. They wanted one thing from him. Can you be sorry without a soul? What does an apology mean to a demon? Damned if you do, damned if you do anyways.  
Angels, demons, monsters, souls, torment....

Sammy. Charlie. Castiel. His lips move, shaping the words around his missing teeth and shredded tongue. Ashtaroth leans in. "What was that, Sir Knight? Prithee, say again."  
A little breath, just enough, to make himself heard. "I'm sorry...." he whispers.

 

Suddenly he is upright. His feet are in shoes—boots, his old all-purpose hiking-and-killing-shit boots—and they are whole, un-gnawed and with every bone and tendon right where it's supposed to be. He's no longer naked, and it's such an unexpected change that he's overwhelmingly aware of everything he's wearing: clean socks and fresh jeans and boxer-briefs and a wifebeater tank under a long sleeved shirt under a flannel shirt and his small-god pendant and the silver ring on his right middle finger and his knife holsters and the leather bands around his left wrist and the scar where his anti-possession tattoo is the only point of soreness, of ache. His skin is whole. His teeth are whole. He's not bleeding. The removal of his injuries is so jarring that he wonders for just a second if he's going to fall over. 

He's in Crowley's office. Any relief that had started to well in him vanishes at the sight of the King of Hell, seated behind his vast executive's desk, smirking at him. Dean's belly drops, and he didn't think he had any soul left but he must because it's crumbling. He wants to cry. He's still in Hell. He'll never leave Hell. 

"There now, darling," Crowley purrs. "Was that so hard?"  
++++

It had taken almost an entire bottle of antacid tablets and a silkwood shower, but Charlie had been back on the case for rescuing Dean almost immediately after her return to the Bunker. It was, Sam had thought with grim satisfaction, so much better than any argument he could have come up with himself: Charlie had seen Dean's torment firsthand, and Charlie—having the soul of a hero—couldn't stand by and not try to rescue him. 

She is pushing hard for sealing Hell, though, against their original plan of unweaving time. Her reasoning is that sealing both Hell and Heaven will give humanity a chance of just fucking themselves up on their own without either divine or infernal influence, which benefits pretty much everyone. "The needs of the many," she quotes at Sam, until he gives up. 

At least she's on his side again, or at least, not diametrically opposed to his side. "You haven't seen him, Sammy," she explains again. "He's....he doesn't want to come back. He's given in. What would it do to him to have all of that ripped away? I hate to say it, but I think Dean might be at peace with himself for the first time ever. He thinks he's where he belongs, and I think he's sick of fighting it."

"But he _wouldn't know_ " Sam replies. "None of us would. There'd be nothing to feel guilty about because none of it will have...would have been...has been would..."

" 'Would have been' or 'will have occurred', " Cas corrects from the corner of the table, where he is studying the various infernal sigils that summon the Princes and Dukes of Hell. They'll have to summon Dean to the Bunker at some point; better brush up now.

Charlie still shakes her head. "Sam, you're not listening to me..."

"If I may," Nisha puts in, "it seems to me that what Charlie is trying to get across, Sam, is the idea of Fate, and 'ow it might have it's finger on yon brother Dean." 

Sam stares at her, and then at Charlie. "So you're saying...you're saying that you think _Dean_ has always been fated to become a...a demon?"

"What I'm saying," Nisha replies, evenly, "is that Dean's path seems to have gone fair and straight in this direction. The pair of you have tried to stop it, sure, but it comes back to this. Every time."

"What do _you_ know about it?" Sam snorts, and Charlie can tell he's starting to get angry. Nisha seems nonplussed.

"I know what I've seen, and what I've learned. 'Ow many times has Dean died, Sam?" Nisha's soft French accent is getting stronger lately, even as she's taking more of an interest in the execution of what has come to be known as Plans A. "And 'ow great 'ave the measures had to become to bring him back from death? Where goes he when he dies? Only once, as I know it, 'as either of you made it to Heaven. And _you_ are hardly immune to this...this path, Sam. 'Ow many deaths 'ave you survived, eh?"

"You were marked to become divine vessels," Cas pipes up, not looking up from the tome he's studying. "Dean was going to carry Michael and become an archangel's vessel, and you were marked for Lucifer. _That's_ Fate."

"And _that's_ what I'm saying," Sam retorts. "Dean was supposed to be an _archangel_. I'm the one who was supposed to end up in Hell!"

There is a brief silence. And then Charlie asks, "Is that all this is, then? Residual guilt? You're chewing yourself up over the fact that you think _you_ were supposed to end up in Hell?"

"Welcome to the Winchester Way of Life," Cas comments. He still hasn't looked up. "If you're not trying to become guiltier than the other guy, you're doing it wrong."

"What the hell is your _problem_ , Castiel?" Sam demands. Finally Cas raises his head, glaring at Sam, and Sam takes an involuntary step back, stumbling against a library table.

"My _problem_ ," Castiel growls, his eyes glowing the faintest blue, "is that I have put a lot of damn hard work into preserving the Winchester brothers, into protecting and promoting their work and their way of life. I have been like unto the salmon, swimming against currents and dodging bears' jaws. And after all that? I find myself working on a plan to either toss me back downstream, so that I'll have another chance to see the pair of you rush to kill yourselves 'for each other'--" Cas makes exaggerated finger quotes--"or be locked into Heaven with the brethren who want nothing more than to be rid of me."

Again, silence. Now no one is looking at anyone else _except_ for Castiel, who is glaring at Sam without blinking. "You never reckon the cost," he rumbles. "You never look to see who else suffers. Look at Charlie, the sister of your heart, who has been put in harm's way since she met the pair of you. Look at Nisha, who is innocent in _all_ of this, and yet will let us cut her heart out to have the power to let you undo time to make all of the same mistakes again." He does not have to say _and it probably won't change a thing_ because they all know that that is a possibility: they might miss the date they aim for, and unwind too much of the past or not enough of it. Dean or even Sam might be presented with this same choice again and choose the Mark, or give in to some other Hellish temptation just because that's their nature. If they do, it'll likely be for the same reason it's always been: that one brother is trying to save the other.

"What do you expect us to do instead, Cas?" Sam asks, and his voice is tight with restraint—held-back anger, or tears, or both. 

Cas gestures. "Just this," he replies, and he is tired. Charlie can see that. "Obey your natures; obey Fate. Sacrifice all for the sake of your brother. I have learned by now that I can't stop you from doing these things. Doesn't mean I have to be happy about it."

He scrawls something on a sheet of paper and tosses it down the length of the table, so it drifts to a stop in front of Charlie. "Try that," he mutters, "when you go to summon Dean." It is a demon-sigil. Charlie's now-practiced eye picks out the strokes that mean 'power' and 'service' and 'murder', and while she's studying the symbol, Cas silently disappears.

Nisha finds him a while later in one of the large, largely-empty rooms that might have been for group magical workings or more mundane chores, like meetings. This one has a table in it and a clutch of wheeled chairs. Cas is sitting in one, near the head of the table. Nisha guesses that the Bunker's angel-warding spells don't let him leave, but his own powers allow him to move around as he likes. She slides silently into a chair at the opposite end of the table. 

"I should kill you now."

Nisha says nothing.

"You're the key to this, the power source. If I kill you, they can't complete either spell. Sam and Dean will have to live with these consequences. I can get Charlie away from here, and I'll leave and never come back. I'll take this and leave and never come back. I'll be a gardener in Heaven and never come back."

Now Nisha can see the little glass tube on the table in front of him. Though she can't see any light emanating from it, Castiel's face is illuminated as though the tube is a lightbulb. The faint shadows on the wall behind him look like wings. 

"That's yours, isn't it?''

"Yes." Now he looks at her. "I could take you and Charlie away. I could send you both to Europe or Antarctica or South America. That would force Sam to stand down, and while the pair of you were making your way back Heaven and Hell could do whatever they're planning to do to each other and destroy us all."

After a moment, Nisha asks, "What _are_ the Powers that Be planning?"

Cas coughs a cynical little laugh. "Nothing. Each is fortifying itself against the other, certain that Dean's new status as a Knight of Hell is guaranteeing the battle between them. Neither, I think, has a plan of attack. It's just like old times. They'll let tensions build until Armageddon is, once again, unavoidable, and tap two new vessels. Whoever has taken over for Michael will come to Earth for Heaven, and Crowley will either let Lucifer loose to do battle, or will send Dean in his place. He won't fight for himself. And _pshhhhhhhb_ \--" Cash spreads his hands slowly, miming the expanse of a mushroom cloud-- "just like that, all that has been done to avoid the Apocalypse will be undone and destroyed, just as it should have been done years ago." He touches the glass vial, rolling it back and forth on the tabletop. "As if none of us ever existed." He repeats the explosion noise and hand-gesture. 

"You can try to kill me," Nisha says after a moment, "but I will tell you now, I will not let it be easy."

"Why do you want to go through with this?" Cas demands. If Nisha hadn't been in the same room as him for most of the day, she'd swear he was two drinks over his limit; as it is, she knows he's sober. "Why give your life for this...this fruitless, impotent future?"

"Have you any idea what it's like to be a member of an endangered species?" she asks quietly in reply. "My sister and I were the last of our race; now I am the last. You and your kind declared us anathema and _verboten_. It was a hard life, _such_ a hard life. We could do little besides hide, and keep our heads down, and use what we had as sparingly as possible. My sister saved animals, you know," she says. "She would take in strays off the street, heal them, feed them, try to find them homes. I tried doing the same for the people I found. It wasn't much, and I couldn't work such miracles as you can, but we did what we could.

"And yet the first time you saw me, you told Charlie I had to die. My father the archangel didn't care what he'd created, and you wanted to destroy me. You _did_ destroy my sister." She stares at him, but there is no anger there. Only sorrow. "And for all that, for all the hardships, for all the hiding and secrecy, I will happily give up _this_ existence to return to one that has my sister in it. I will gladly go back to the timeline where I am not alone. Maybe I will take my sister and go to China, where they do not allow the trappings of religion, and we will hide ourselves in a cave or a monastery and be safe in a place you dare not go." She sighs, and Cas realizes this is the most he's ever heard her speak at once. "For that chance, I will help Charlie and Sam. There is little else that would compel me."

"So. Another one."

"Pardon?" She rolls the _r_ in the back of her throat. 

"Give your life for your sister, to the detriment of everyone else. Throw away everything for your sister. Another _Winchester_ mentality."

Nisha makes a dismissive gesture, settling back in her chair, ignoring the ominous creaks. "If you like. Why do _you_ stay? You, who 'ate this all so much?"

"Force. Of. Habit." Each word drops like a stone. 

"So change it. I'll banish you myself if you like; _you_ can go to China for a few weeks, and when the foolishness is all done, you can leave the Winchesters and take your grace and retire to Heaven where they will ignore you and try to kill you and you don't have to take part in anything here."

Finally Castiel meets her eyes. The impossibility of her proposal is written all across his face. He'll do no less than Sam or Dean would do for Dean or Sam.

"So. Another _Winchester_ mentality." 

She leaves him sitting in the darkened room, the only light coming from the little vial of his grace, and he's the only one who can see it.


	12. There's No Place Like

There is smoke, there is infernal fire, and then, tied to the chair in the middle of the devil's trap in the middle of the floor, there is....a demon who is not Dean. It's in it's inhuman form, all wings and horns and fangs and Sam's pretty sure it's got at least two independent sets of jaws. 

"OK, let's make a note that the last change in the sigil didn't work and we need to figure out which of the brushstrokes is off," he calls to Charlie over the shrieking, barking, gabbling figure that's slobbering in the middle of the pentacle on the floor. She nods, already beginning the banishing spell. As the foul smoke subsides Sam shuffles his notes, tossing the latest version of the Dean-summoning sigil onto the dying embers in the middle of the floor. It flares sickly orange before crisping to ash, smelling like burning pork. Charlie coughs and scowls. 

"This is frustrating," Sam admits before she can say anything, holding out a placating hand, "but you're getting really good at the summoning ritual and the banishing spell, so it's not a total loss."

"This isn't just frustrating, Sammy, this is _stupid_ frustrating." Charlie moves to scrape the hair back from her forehead, then realizes at the last second that her hands are still covered in the egg-and-lamb's-blood-goo that she'd had to paint in the middle of the pentagram at the start of the ritual. Grimacing, she wipes her hands on her jeans: they were bound for the laundry basket anyways, and she's gotten pretty good at getting bloodstains out by now. "Three lesser imps and two infernal creatures and _none_ of them is even _close_ to being the Knight of Hell that we need. Are we going to have to slog through the whole Hellish hierarchy before we get around to Dean? I mean, does his cell phone not work anymore?"

 _That_ gives Sam pause. "I called him almost non-stop the first week he disappeared," Sam says slowly, "but I haven't really tried since. I don't even know if he needs a phone anymore, or if Crowley just pulls--"

"Jeez. Sam."

"...Sorry."

"Charlie? Sam?" Nisha's voice comes from the echoing hallway outside the summoning chamber. "Are you at a good stopping point?"

"We're in here, Nisha," Charlie calls, stepping out of the salt circle, careful not to disturb the neat line of white grains. It's a pain to get it so neat, and she doesn't want to have to do it again.

Nisha peeks around the corner, then, seeing the coast is clear, enters the room, followed by Castiel. "We might have a situation, if you two are inclined to take a break," Cas adds. He shows them his phone: Garth has been leaving them mostly alone, although asking for periodic updates as to when he can put them back on his schedule. This text is...long.

_I no u guys r totes busy but got no 1 else w/xp...talking dogs cats pets want civil rites in ks think it might be some kind of shaman...ppl going crzy [poop emoji] hits [folding-fan emoji] & if talking dog gets on news where will it end....pls Cas etc pls_

" 'Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!' " Charlie quips, looking around at the other three for some appreciation of her joke.

" 'Sorry, Venkman, I'm too terrified for rational thought,' " Sam deadpans back, and winks at her. She grins. 

"So, shamanic magic in Kansas, eh?" Nisha muses. "And it says here you all have some experience with this, eh?"

"Sure. I turned Dean into a dog whisperer once, _eh_ ", Sam answers, only a little mockingly. Talking to Nisha can sometimes be a study in the deveolpment of the Canadian accent. She makes a moue at him before turning her attention back to Castiel. Charlie watches him a little longer. 

Sam's almost never ...excited by things any more. Passionate about working up this spell, sure; devout in his arguments about whatever situation they're discussing, of course. But excited? Looking forward to doing something? Pretty much never nowadays. Til now. 

"Well, I'm in," Charlie says decisively. The other three turn to her, and it's Nisha who says what everyone else is apparently thinking.

"Are you sure?" The question comes out slowly. "Charlie, last time you left the Bunker you were shanghaied by demons at a diner. We know they can't get in here; maybe you're safer here."

"What, by _myself_?" Charlie shakes her head. "No way, Jose, not in a hundred million and a half years. You're not leaving me in a giant, magic-ridden Batcave _by myself_ to watch horror movies and go around with a flashlight every hour of the night to make sure all the doors are still locked. No. Not gonna happen. If I'm staying here, someone else is, too."

It's a short argument, after all. Charlie goes back to her room to grab her go-bag, and almost as an afterthought grabs her Oznian elephant-tusk machete and breech-loading pistols. Garth's warning about _talking animals_ probably doesn't mean _Talking_ animals, but the whole sitch is sending intermittent willies up and down her spine and she figures it's a lot better to have them and not need them. 

The four of them are pulled up short in the garage. The Chocolate Frog still needs a lot of work, what with having both Winchesters land hard on her hood; she won't turn over when Charlie cranks the key, and both Sam and Nisha agree with Charlie's assessment that there's probably more than a few wires that have been knocked loose with hard use. The look on Sam's face when Castiel even looks towards the dark corner where the Impala is stored, means that no one actually mentions uncovering Baby to take her out on the hunt. The rest of the Men of Letters' fleet, as it were, is at least two decades old and not gonna get the best gas milage, but eventually they decide on a VW taxi that has, like the rest of the diesel engines in the garage, been retrofitted to run on cooking oil. That'll cut down on travel costs over the 18 hours it'll take to get to Topeka.

Cas offers to ferry them, but both Sam and Charlie would feel better if they had a car at their disposal while on the hunt, and Nisha doesn't argue. Sam takes the first leg of the drive, and they don't stop for snacks until they're well into Ohio.

++++

Liberal, Kansas, is right on the border with Oklahoma, and boasts an 8-foot section of what looks like chain-link fencing to hold up a number of signs at the town's eastern edge. The Masons, the Moose, and the Boy Scouts all have an offcial presence here, and Liberal has it's own AAA baseball team. Just as they pass the sign, Charlie notices an older, weather-beaten post behind it, sporting a stylized cyclone. _Follow The Yellow-Brick Road!_ it declares, and Charlie shivers. Her spidey-sense started tingling as they crossed the Missouri-Kansas border, and is humming at her: maybe staying back at the Bunker wouldn't have been the worst idea in the world. Well, too late now, and anyways they have Castiel to teleport anyone out of danger that needs it; Charlie steels herself against the bad case of the creeps that she's developing, and finds Sam a motel to park the Taxi at until the morning. 

Sam waits until they've dropped their gear in the adjoining rooms before he bursts out with, "Charlie, you didn't have to pay for the rooms."

"It's not a problem, Sammy--"

"I mean, I've got room left on _my_ credit card and--"

"Sam, really, it's not a problem," she insists, but Sam won't give in.

"And the Men of Letters' stipend fund--"

" _Sam, stop_ ," Charlie commands in her best Queen-of-Moondoor voice. He finally shuts up, and so she sighs and continues, "Look, I know you guys haven't subsisted on ID theft for a while now, and that's great. I also know that _my_ alternative revenue stream isn't going to dry up any time soon, and the chances are one in a couple million that I'm not going to get found out. Just chill. I got you."

"What _is_ your revenue stream?" Castiel asks, genuinely curious. Nisha chokes back a laugh when Charlie answers.

"I'm funded by, ah, several political action committees who pay me a weekly stipend out of their printing budget," Charlie can't help but smile slyly. "These are PACs and super-PACs that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a week on consulation and legal fees; not a one of them minds that I'm $600 out of their ten-thousand-dollar weekly supermarket-flyer budget. It all deposits on the regular in a couple different accounts that then dump-transfer to my main account monthly." Sam is staring at her. "What? This is what I've been doing long before I worked for Dick Roman. It was one of my first big hacker projects, setting myself up for life. Even when I was handling Mom's hospital bills I had plenty coming in."

"How much is plenty?" Nisha asks. 

"Um, between the four PACs and five super-PACs, I'm seeing five figures a month," Charlie answers after some quick mental math. "And hey, that's money that's not going to bombing women's health clinics, or funding smear ads against the Girl Scouts, or padding the pockets of some sleazy lawyer. It's for the greater good."

"The greater good," Sam echoes, and shakes his head. "Fine. We're finding a diner and you're buying a late dinner, from here on out."

Garth meets them at the police station the next morning, and it's a mark of how weird the info on this case must be that he's there at all: number one, that he made the drive from South Dakota, and number two, that he meets them at 10 am—way past his bedtime. Werewolves become more and more crepuscular as they age, which means Garth should be sleeping during the bright hours of the day; instead, he's joining them to hunt some talking animals. 

There are hugs and handshakes all around, and Nisha gives Garth an extra squeeze before pinning her own fake ID to the front of her shirt: Garth and Sam are animal-control officers, Nisha and Charlie are a vet and her tech, respectively, and Castiel is....well, "around", as he's assured them. Nisha can speak with him telepathically within a limited range, and apparently he doesn't have to be visible for that range to apply, so he'll wait until the extra-strength angelic muscle is needed before popping back into view. Even though they've come to some kind of truce or cease-fire, Nisha is still more relaxed without Castiel in the immediate vicinity. 

The desk sergeant's name is McElroy, and while he gives their group a great deal of side-eye he lets them read the reports that have come in on the talking animals. Luckily no one's been hurt—well, no humans, anyway—but a farmer out on the edge of town took a couple shots at what he swore was a tiger after it asked him if he knew where it could get a decent stake that hadn't been chicken-fried. 

Charlie's past asking the universe for favors, but she's still hoping against hope that she'll be totally and completely wrong when they make it out to the farmhouse where the tiger incident happened. She's also wondering how you have an edge to a town that barely has a center, but hey, it's Kansas, and they find the farmhouse easily enough. No one is home, though; Charlie squints against the ever-present wind gusting across the flat fields and thinks that she can make out some farm equipment out in the distance. As that's the extent of her knowledge of what happens on a farm, though, she can't guess whether the people out there are the ones they want to talk to, and so the quartet steps off the front porch to head back to the Taxi. 

There is a big mutt sitting in front of the car, tongue lolling in the midday heat. All four of them stop in their tracks, and Charlie's heart sinks down into her belly. She takes a step forward, holding her hands out, palms up. "Hey there, Toto," she sighs. The big dog grins.

"How's it goin', LT?"

"So you finally decided to Talk," Charlie says, and the rest of the group can hear the capital _T_ she gives the word. "After all that, what are you doing back on this side?"

"Nice to see you too, Chaz," Toto answers, stressing the nickname just a bit. Sam's seen plently of movies where dog muzzles are manipulated to look like they could form human words, but seeing and hearing it in real life is just _eerie_. Toto's lips run the length of his jaw, like all big dogs, and every word gives a clear view of the long rows of sharp teeth set inside the muzzle. His lips do curve over the necessary syllables, but their length, and the size of the dog's tongue, give him something that almost sounds like a lateral lisp. 

"Sorry," Charlie replies, not sounding sorry at all. "It's just...I figured once you started Talking, you'd never want to leave Oz."

"Yeah, well, place ain't all it's cracked up to be, innit?" Toto resettles himself, rising up to sit on his haunches and lean his back against the Taxi's bumper. "Look, LT, the War's still going on, and Dorothy ain't playin' nice with anyone anymore. I may have come late to it, but even I can Read the writing on the wall." He's gesturing with his paws, just like a human talking with his hands. Sam knows he's staring and can't help it.

"So you came back. Anyone come with you? A tiger, maybe, who doesn't like chicken-fried steak?"

"Sure, a few of us made it over. Might not have thought the whole plan through, yanno? I was figurin', it bein' just me, I get taken in on some farm where they need a smart dog. Problem is, lotsa farms don't have room for tigers, or owls, or bears."

"Oh my," Charlie murmurs. 

"So who's your friends?" Toto asks, falling forward onto his front feet and standing up. His tail gives a half-wag. 

"Oh, sorry. Toto, this is Sam, and Nisha, and Garth." Garth is the only one who kneels when he's introduced; Toto approaches eagerly to sniff him, but then backs away, stiff-legged, tail down and hackles up.

"A _lycanthrope_ , lieutenant?" He snarls. "The hell you doin' with this fur-suit wannabe?"

"Hey, play nice, Toto," Charlie orders. "Garth's the one who told us you were here. And back off, he's a decent guy."

"Sure, sure, decent guy, bite you or me no problem. Equal-opportunity infector," Toto growls, but he sits again, never taking his eyes off Garth. For his part, Garth looks embarrassed, standing quickly and backing away a step. Toto continues to growl, low, and Sam swears he hears something about "rabies" and "put you down" somewhere in there. Garth looks like he wants to be anywhere but here. 

"So what's your plan, Toto?" Nisha finally ventures to ask. "Like you said, you've got an in on any farm in the area, but if you've got bears and tigers and everything else, it's going to take some travel time to get your friends out of sight."

"Got it in one, angel-face," Toto replies, and takes his eyes off of Garth long enough to actually _wink_ at Nisha. "I was hopin' we could hop a train car somewhere, maybe skip out to Colorado or somewhere else with mountains. We can all make our way s'long as there's caves to hide in and not a lot of people around. From what I've seen, though, there ain't a lot of trains around here anymore. Used to be, before. Now," he turns to Charlie, casting her a pleading look, "now we could use someone who's got smarts about this time and place. Just to get us out to the mountains. Then we scatter, we're outta your hair, and everyone gets on with their peaceful, sapient-creature lives."

"Wait a frakking minute," Charlie snaps. "You insult my friends and now you want me to help you get your little menagerie out West?"

Toto bristles—visibly--at the word _menagerie_ , and Sam gets the idea that Charlie used it deliberately. There's a whole new vocabulary that needs to be learned, apparently, if one is going to act as a liaison between the humans and the Talking Animals. (Garth flinches from the word, too, but no one else notices. He's already decided to be d o n e done with this job.)

The big dog calms himself down; Nisha can almost imagine he's counting to ten in his head. "Please, LT," he replies, quietly. "You're literally the only person I can go to with this. It's plain good luck that you showed up when you did, and I'm askin' you for help. Please."

Charlie sighs and rubs her face with her hands. "This is going to take some doing," she warns, and Toto's tail wags a little in the dust. "I need to know who you have with you and where they need to go before I can tell you if I can help at all."

"Sure, sure," Toto agrees quickly, and licks his lips. His ears are perked, one almost standing straight up. "Hey, why don't you stop by tonight after dark? Everybody should be around by then. We can have a little dinner, talk things through, see what our options are. You can meet the pack. Heck, bring your angel-doll friend there, and this tall one that ain't stopped staring since you got here." Toto delivers a pointed glare to Sam, who suddenly realizes that his mouth has been hanging open for a few minutes now. He closes it with an audible click and Toto continues. "Be just like old times, eh? We'll tell a few war stories, have a bite to eat, it'll be great. Great, LT, just great. Thanks a mint."

"We need to hit a grocery store," Charlie sighs once they turn off the farm's long driveway and back onto the road. "Toto might have been hunting for his buddies, but chances are they haven't found a whole lot to eat, and I'm forcing them to have a dinner party."

"Shouldn't that be a pet-food store?" Sam jokes, and is rewarded with two equally-offended glares: Charlie's, from the rear-view mirror, and Garth's, from the backseat. Nisha also twists around in her seat to look at him, and Sam can almost taste the shoe leather and rubber sole he should probably be choking on right about now. 

"Think about animated movies, Sam. These guys are closer to anthromorphic projections of animals than the animals you're thinking of. More.... _Kung Fu Panda_ than _Bambi_. When you meet them tonight, most of them will be going on their hind legs, wearing clothes, and wearing watches or glasses or jewelry. It'll be a culture shock, I know, but you have to treat them like you'd treat any other _person_ , because that's what they are. And," Charlie shakes her head, "they'll have a lot less hostility towards us if I bring them a good meal."

In the end, there are six rotisserie chickens, two tubs of mashed potatoes, a slab of smoked salmon, four kinds of cheeses, a tub of yogurt and a platter of cut fruit that make it to the dilapidated old barn where Toto told them to meet. Charlie debated bringing a couple bottles of wine, but Oznians don't use grapes to make their vintages, and if the company is going to be as varied as she thinks it is she doesn't want to end up poisoning her fellow war vets by making them drink the pressings of an alien fruit. Sam makes a second trip back out to the taxi to fetch some 3-gallon bottles of water. (Garth has decided that the three of them have this situation well in hand and that he's not really needed here. Charlie can hardly blame him, but she's sorry all the same that Toto's prejudices are driving him away. Garth can be pretty funny.)

They're the last ones to arrive, and the assembly rises when they enter, Toto on four legs, the other four animals on two each. For a minute everyone just stares at each other; then Charlie puts her grocery bags down gently and bows, slowly, in unison with the other former denizens of Oz.

"It is good to see you again, Lieutenant," a solemn voice rumbles from the left, and Charlie recognizes the brown bear in the tattered red waistcoat: Hlweyn, one of Dorothy's quartermasters whose tenure in that position had lasted a lot longer than his four predecessors. 

"And you, my friend," she answers, not needing to dissemble: she'd always liked Hlweyn. "Um," Charlie coughs, "I suppose introductions are in order. These are my friends, Sam Winchester and Nisha. I don't know if I know everyone else, but Once Upon A Time I was Charlie Brew-berry, First Lieutenant to General Dorothy Gale of Kansas." Nisha and Sam can hear the careful capitalizations she's giving certain words. 

"Well-met, Lieutenant," Hlweyn rumbles, "and to our guests, as well. I am Hlweyn Snemk, Quartermaster General to the Armies of Oz—or, Once Upon A Time, I was." Hlweyn shakes his head, snorting sadly. "My compatriots are also former members of the Army of Oz: Reee-Ha and Ysur Buttonbright of the Aerial Corps" a long-clawed paw gestures to a pair of Owls, perched on a half-collapsed stall divider to Charlie's right, "and Runner, of the Scout Corps."

Charlie remembers Reee-Ha and Ysur; the Owls were enthusiastic participants in the ill-fated attempts to firebomb the fields outside Ruby City. Ysur is still proudly wearing the scorched breastplate that kept her from being completely immolated during her last bombing run; Reee-Ha sports an eyepatch over one eye, covering the clouded ruin of the eye she lost in the same engagement. Runner is a Tiger of no small stature, clad in a many-pocketed vest and short pants, with a bandana tied casually around his neck. He is lounging on what looks like a pile of tarps, for all the world like it was the comfiest La-Z-Boy in existence. 

"Please, friends, let us eat," Charlie offers, gesturing to the pile of grocery bags they've brought; there's nothing like table or chairs, but at least she has had the foresight to bring plastic flatware for everything, so they're not just digging in the dishes with hands, paws, and talons. There's a slightly tense silence as the food is doled out and passed around.

"So, my tall friend," Runner says, nodding at Sam, "what questions might we answer to alleviate your wonder?"

"Huh?" Sam chokes a little on the mouthful he's been chewing. "Oh, 'scuse me. I mean—what was the question?"

"You're still staring, Sammy," Charlie chides him gently, handing him a napkin. 

"We've been stared at a lot since coming here," Ysur adds. "I suppose we ought to get used to it."

"I just—well, uh, Toto was one thing," Sam stammers, "but, but not really as, um, unusual, you know? I just--"

" _Toto_ is something of a special case, dear," Ysur replies, "a late bloomer, of a sort. He came to Talking _late,_ after all, and hasn't quite adapted to the Talking-Animal way of life." She flicks a wingtip against her own breastplate, rolling one golden eye in Toto's direction. 

Toto, for his part, looks a little murderous. He's been eating directly from his plate, having served himself with his paws with difficulty; now he hastily licks his muzzle and laboriously picks up a chicken leg in his front paws, balancing a little tenuously on his hind legs. His tail beats the dirt floor sporadically, fighting to help him keep his balance. 

"Now, Ysur, we musn't belittle Toto's efforts," Hlweyn rumbles, gesturing with his own fork, held expertly between three-inch claws. "If we are to establish ourselves in this place, why, I daresay we'll all be shedding our clothes and forsaking silverware soon enough." Charlie can tell that the snout-wiggle directed at Toto is meant to be encouraging, but to Sam and Nisha—and Toto—the gesture seems unwontedly rude. 

"Oh, I daresay we'll find some way to Maintain Standards," Ysur answers. There are those implied capitals again. 

"So, what's the latest from Oz? Has Dorothy decided to stand down yet?" Charlie hastily interjects.

"We wouldn't be here if she had," Runner answers, dragging a....paw-tip? Toe-tip? The corner of one of her foremost appendages...through the remains of the mashed potatoes and gravy on her plate. "The Good Ol' General is still throwing herself against the walls of the Emerald City."

"She hates the place," Hlweyn adds. "I think there are very few things the General would like so much as to see the Wizard's City broken and ruined. Alas, the gates remain unbreached."

"Is the Emerald City her end goal?" Nisha asks, somewhat timidly.

"Well, defeat of the Wizard would go a long way towards furthering her campaign," Runner muses. "It's been the one promise she hasn't gone back on. Once she discovered that the Wizard was supporting all of the Witches, she fixed on him as the way to break the back of Oznian bureacracy."

"She's rarely strayed from that goal, as well you know, LT," Toto puts in, relaxing down to a more natural-looking sitting position. He ignores the _tsk tsk_ that comes from Ysur's direction. "And she doesn't listen to anyone who suggests otherwise."

"Well, she did," Ysur amends. "...once."

Charlie looks down at her plate. 

"And then she stopped," a new voice piped up, and everyone turns to look at Reee-Ha, the second Owl. She is staring hard at her companions, her one yellow eye slightly mad. "She stopped listening," she repeats, "and started ignoring the poor lieutenant, same as everyone else. Woman's got a head harder than any and ears stopped with wax. So the lieutenant got through to her once? Sentimentality and foolishness. A voice from home. 'S all." She falls silent again, eyeing a last piece of melon on her plate, poking at it with one talon.

"And so here we are," Runner declares, sweeping one arm around to encompass the barn and company. The Tiger smiles, showing her long incisors. "The lieutenant told us about this world and how a body could get by without ever having to see anyone else, using this Construct-magic to give and take orders. Sounded a damn sniff better'n what we've been going through, and so we snuck out the Key and--"

All of the other Animals make disapproving sounds in unison, as though they'd rehearsed it . Charlie's head snaps up. "You _took the_ Key?" she demands, and all of a sudden Nisha and Sam can totally believe that she commanded these guys in the field. Her voice is like icewater.

"The one you left behind, LT," Toto answers, finally, nosing towards the Bear. "We used the Pearl Key 'cause we knew the General didn't know where it'd be."

"And how did _you_ find it?" Charlie asks coldly.

"Followed my nose, yanno?" Toto retorts. The Bear and the Tiger both frown ferociously; Nisha gets the idea that this is some kind of speciest slur. "Look, I'm not proud, but I did what I been bred to do, and I followed you outta camp after the Wolves left and I tracked you to the Yellow Brick Crossroads and I watched you open the door with the Pearl Key, and then you hid the key in the rosebushes and closed the door behind you."

"And is this Pearl Key important?" Nisha interjects.

"There are three Keys," Charlie explains, still glaring at Toto and the other Animals. "Dorothy kept the Pearl Key with her while she and the Witch were trapped in our world. There's a Gold Key and a Topaz Key, too, but they're held in the Wizard's Treasure Vault in Emerald City. Any one of the Keys will get a body between our worlds, which is why Dorothy wants the Emerald City so badly. She—that is, she and I, we always assumed the Wizard was teleporting out of Oz every time our army approached, so he was never in danger of capture or being killed." Charlie exhales slowly. "If she got the other two Keys, Dorothy would control the traffic between Oz and our world, which means she could trap the Wizard in a corner and finish him off. Plus she could open Doors almost anywhere, so she could get our forces between points A and B so much faster than the Oznian Army could ever mobilize."

"You guys have to get the Pearl Key back to Dorothy!" Charlie exclaims. "She needs to have that ability to move the troops she's got left--"

"Hey, hey, calm down, LT, just take a minute," Toto says, starting forward on all fours, with a little whine in his voice. "Hang on. We've got a plan to do just that. Dorothy'll get the Pearl Key back, don't you worry."

"Toto—" Hlweyn says warningly, but Runner puts a paw on his arm and he subsides.

"Oh yeah?" Charlie's too upset to have noticed the Bear's interruption. "What's this great plan of yours, Toto? Is it better than abandoning your duties, stealing a Key, and bringing a bunch of Talking Animals to a world where they're not supposed to exist?"

Toto's tongue is lolling out of his mouth in a doggy grin. "Yeah, LT, it is," he answers, and steps across the circle towards her. "See, Dorothy's gonna throw herself against the walls of Emerald City until she breaks, and there's just enough Munchkins and Constructs left following her to make each of those battles a bloodbath. What she needs, what she _really_ needs, is someone to talk some sense into her. Someone she trusts. Someone she misses, misses terribly. Someone she'd elevate above a faithful, lifelong companion _just because he can't Talk yet_." Toto and Charlie are almost nose-to-nose, and she can see his hackles starting to rise. "Someone like you," he growls.

"You'll come back with us," Ysur adds, smoothing down her neck feathers with one wing. "Once you convince the General to give up for good and all, we'll be able to negotiate a favorable deal with the Wizard to grant us his Forgiveness."

"C'mon, LT," Reee-Ha says softly. "Help us save some lives."

Charlie sets her plate down and stands up. "Sam, Nisha, we're _leaving_."

In half a second the Owls have blocked the door, and both the Tiger and the Bear are on their feet, advancing with paws held out to the side, herding the three humans into a tight bunch. Toto is standing awkwardly on his hind legs, pawing at something hanging around his neck; finally he manages to shake it over his head, and he drops to all fours, picking it up in his mouth: the Pearl Key. With a twist of his head he slides the Key into the rusted-out lock on the old barn door, and gives it a quick turn. "This is for the best, LT, you'll see," he's repeating, over and over, as Charlie, Nisha and Sam are buffeted by wings and shoved by great paws towards the shining doorway behind them.

"No!" Nisha shouts, and lunges for the Bear, trying to break the circle. Hlweyn growls and swipes at her, but there's none of the bestial strength behind it that she expects. Well, if he's not going to go all-out, Nisha decides, _she_ will—she plants her feet and swings at the Bear with as much strength as she can muster.  
(Hlweyn feels like he has been used as the clapper in a giant bell. Everything is ringing, from his teeth to his ears to his bones, and it only starts to hurt when he hits the opposite wall of the barn. Then agony bursts outward from his jaw, spiraling down his spine and dampening the bronze tones that will continue to echo in his ears for the next two days.)

The Owls shriek as Hlweyn goes flying, and Ysur stoops to attack even as Reee-Ha is darting around to the opposite side to harry the nephilim that has laid out the Bear. Runner digs her talons into Sam's arm and he yells, dropping his gun, as Runner charges at Charlie and tries to scoop her up and through the Door. Charlie dodges, though, and Runner only barely misses flinging herself headlong through the Door by sidestepping and tripping over Toto.

"Stand _up_ , you stupid dog!" the Tiger bellows, and funny, there's no implied capital this time. Toto snarls and snaps at her, not bothering to Talk.

Nisha breaks from the action and sprints over to the Bear, lying prone against the wall. With only a slight grunt she heaves him up on her back (and oh, it's such a joy to be able to use her strength like this) and takes a run at the open Door. She hurls the Bear through, and through the shining edges of the Doorway can see him hit the ground on the other side—where it is daylight, and there seems to be nothing but bramble bushes.

Nisha lunges for the Tiger next, and when she grabs her tail Runner lets loose with an outraged scream: "How _dare_ you!" she spits, raising a great clawed paw to slash across Nisha's face. The claws tear through the nephil's shirt, and she darts forward, shoving the Tiger through the nearby portal with her shoulder, only barely stopping herself with a hand on the Doorframe as Runner tumbles into the brambles. Toto is hunkered down close to the floor, snapping and growling, and Nisha skips out of the way of his teeth.

Sam can feel blood flowing from a half-dozen scratches on his face and hands, but he's got a grip on both of Reee-Ha's legs now, and he's hauling her towards the Door. Each slap of her wings is like having his ears boxed, and he knows that he's gonna have a black eye, at least, for a day or so. Still, he practically hammer-throws the furious Owl through the doorway, hearing a satisfying screech as the Tiger gets a faceful of feathers on her way back towards the portal. 

To Charlie's surprise, Ysur backs off when her sister is flung through the Door. "Ha, lieutenant," she chirps."Discretion, valor, and all that: I never actually thought you'd come back with us, willingly or not. Teach the pup some manners, will you? None of my lessons seem to have stuck." And the Owl wings her way through the door, slamming it shut behind her. There's a blast of hot wind , and the Pearl Key drops ringingly to the dusty barn floor.

The darkness is almost absolute in the immediate aftermath, as is the silence. For a moment, the only sound is labored breathing. Then, Toto begins to whimper. 

"Charlie, Charlie, please, please don't keep me here," he begs, crawling towards her through the dimness, tail tucked between his legs. "Charlie, please, Charlie, all I wanted was to get back to my girl, get back to my Dorothy. I thought, I thought if I had you, I thought she'd be so happy to see you, so happy to see us both—please, Charlie, please--" His words fail him.

"Toto," Charlie murmurs, dropping to one knee in front of the terrified Dog. Sam surreptitiously picks up the Key, palming its brilliance up his sleeve for the moment; Nisha stands to Charlie's left, warily, in case Toto has another change of heart. Charlie reaches out and strokes Toto's head, and he whines, leaning into her touch.

"I thought, if I could Talk," he whimpers. "I thought she'd love me again, like she did when we were on the farm. I thought I could be good enough for her again. All those times she told me to Stop Barking at the Lion, and the Constructs...and then she went away! She came back here, and I waited, I waited. I waited like a Good Boy. I learned how to Talk, like a Good Boy, so I could be her Good Boy again when she came back. Charlie, I waited."

"Oh, Toto," Charlie manages, tears spilling over down her cheeks. 

"Don't make me stay," he begs. "Let me go back there. I'll find her, and I'll be a Good Boy. Please, Charlie, please..."

Sam silently presses the Key into Charlie's hand, and when she turns to him, he steps out of the way of the old barn door, gesturing towarsd the rusty lock. "No," she says, in a low voice. "If I open it there, the others will blame him. I don't know what they'll do to him if he comes out in the same spot. We need to find a different door."

They end up driving back to the motel. Toto curls into the back seat between Charlie and the door, resting his head on her lap, silent except for the occasional whine. Sam wonders if the poor guy ever rode in a car in his life; he can't remember if the Gales had a truck on the farm. What an awful thing to happen to a dog, Sam thinks. Not only did his owner lose interest in him, but she did it in a time and place where he could understand _what_ was happening, but not really _why_. Would an Oznian Dog blame himself the way Toto did, or had they evolved and reasoned themselves out of that particular trait? 

"Stay tonight," Charlie offers as they pull up to the motel. No one has said anything for most of the trip, and her voice startles the other two humans. "Toto, time and space are different on this side. We'll do a little research for a day or so, and you can rest here. We'll find a better place to send you back to, and by the time you're there, Ysur and the others will have scattered and gone their separate ways. If you go through now, there's still the chance that you'll come out in Oz close to where they landed, and they won't be happy with you that this plan failed."

Toto's bushy tail thumps feebly on the seat, and he sighs. "Thanks for the offer, LT, but you and I both know what I gotta say," he replies in a low voice. "I have to find Dorothy. This was a stupid idea in the first place, but at least I get the chance to go back and make it right with her. And like you said, time's passing differently on this side. The longer we chat here, the longer she's over there without me, and she might need me." Toto paws the handle of the door and jumps out, shaking himself all over.

"I'm sorry, Toto," Charlie says, following him out into the cool night. "I'm sorry if I took Dorothy away from you."

Toto pushes his head against her hand. "I know, kiddo, and I know you didn't mean it. I'll find her, and I'll be better for her. It's not your fault, not really." 

Could anyone but a Dog deliver words like that and make her feel _worse_? No, probably not. "Let me at least find a good place to send you," Charlie says instead, pulling the Key out of her pocket. She approaches one of the ground-floor motel room doors, sliding the Key into the key-card reader and giving it a twist. The Door that opens, shining, in place of the motel room that should be there, is high on a ridge, overlooking a field of ripening green and orange pumpkins.

"Smells like the Southern border of Winkie Country," Toto sniffs the breeze blowing through the Door, and his tail wags a little, low and uncertain. "I can make my way West from here to the Emerald City, and I know Dorothy'll be back there, eventually, at least," he adds, looking up at Charlie hopefully.

"I think we can probably do you better," Charlie decides, and twists the Key again, closing the Door. Toto whines a little as the light fades, but follows her to the next door over, watching anxiously as she twists the Key in the card slot again. This Door blossoms open, illuminating the shore of a wide body of water. This time, the sun is setting, and Toto sniffs the air again.

"This is the Lake, South of the Poppy Fields," he says, his tail wagging with more confidence, but Charlie shakes her head again.

"You won't be able to pass the Poppies without falling asleep, and without someone there to wake you up, you'll sleep forever," she reminds him, and his ears and tail droop. "Don't worry. We're getting closer," and she twists the Door shut again, moving one more door down.

This Door opens in the middle of a red-brick road. Through the silvery outline, Charlie can see potholes in the road and missing paving-stones; the road wends its way slowly between scorched, blackened hills. Almost immediately ahead of them, a massive shadow falls across the road, and a wall of solid, sparkling green rises in sheer bulk, blocking any view of the horizon. Charlie gasps, and as she holds her breath she can hear the faint call of a bugle, and the shouts of a myriad of voices, some Animal, some Oznian, and some Constructed. Toto breathes in the smoke-laden air and his tail begins to wag, hard.

"Charlie! Charlie, I can smell her, Charlie—Dorothy's over there, Charlie, she's over there, _I can get to her from here!_ " The last words are said with an excited, anxious whine, and Toto's ears are laid back almost flat against his head. Charlie carefully removes the Pearl Key from the card-reader slot and digs in her pocket for her car keys and keychains, all strung on an old, faded lanyard from a long-gone Comic-Con. She unclips everything else from the lanyard, looping and clipping the length of nylon securely through the head of the Pearl Key, before slipping the lanyard around Toto's neck.

"Get the Key back to Dorothy--" she begins, and Toto's off like a shot before she can say anything more, streaking through the Doorway and down the Red-Brick Road and out of sight. Charlie reaches for the shining edges of the Doorway, pulling them shut, trying really, really hard not to cry. "Good boy, Toto. Good boy," she whispers, before closing the Door for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a lot of references to the Land of Oz in this chapter; some come from L Frank Baum's stories, others come from Gregory Maguire's book _Wicked_ and its sequels, _Son of a Witch_ and _A Lion Among Men_. I have tried not to quote directly from any of these stories and to keep my references broad; nonetheless, let me say that I do not, of course, own any piece, part, or whole of those series.


	13. Hail Mary Pass

"You'll go where I send you, return when I summon you, and do as I tell you until I know I can trust you again," Crowley had said, his eyes smouldering despite the velvet in his voice. And then he'd laid a hand on Dean's chest, and the searing burn of a binding had branded itself over his heart, and he'd found himself shackled, truly shackled to Crowley's wishes. Those wishes seemed mainly to focus on the Pit, torturing various souls, and feeding their shreds through the bars of Lucifer's Cage. Once or twice, on a lark, he tried summoning the Blade to him, but the only result was that the brand on his chest burned like acid. Crowley hadn't even summoned him. And so had passed the last two hellish, boring weeks. 

Dean couldn't bring himself to care. Even when he caught glimpses of faces through the bars of the Cage, even when green, pleading eyes looked back at him and he could swear he saw Adam's face in there, he didn't really feel anything. Well, that's not true; there were surface emotions. _Poor kid,_ Dean would think, over and over again, _but that's what you get for tryin' to be a Winchester._ The sympathy was fleeting, sucked into the great blank hole that was now the center of Dean's being. 

He banishes the manacles from his latest victim's wrists and ankles and the body goes slack, whimpering. It is—was--a man, a glutton and an adulterer. Dean wonders what it is that makes a damned soul try so hard to hang onto its physical form; almost nothing he's done to this one would have mattered at all if the soul had just accepted its insubstatial form and surrendered to a life of blackening smoke. Of course, given the particulars of this one's sins, it might be only natural to want to remain in that body for as long as possible. _Hedonists,_ Dean thinks disdainfully. He hoists the sinner over his shoulder, grimacing as blood starts to trickle down his collar from the man's myriad wounds. 

"Thank you, thank you, thank you....." the man is murmuring, weakly, as Dean heaves him into a rickety cart—a hellish wheelbarrow, he supposes-- and starts pushing him towards the exit.

"Don't thank me, buddy. Really." _Frank_ , he remembers. "Frank," he amends. "Don't thank me. I was just the warm-up act." The doors to the chamber open, and there stands an imp with a delighted grin on his face. The joy in his expression is lessened somewhat by the fact that he has two mouths, and that each runs vertically up the sides of his face. 

"Your pick, Ephegnimious," Dean says, pushing the cart towards him. "Third level or eighth, doesn't matter to me."

The imp—Ephegnimious--licks all four lips with two forked tongues. "Had a lot in the eighth lately," he muses. His voice is a weird kind of stereo, shrieking out of one mouth and rumbling from the other. Reminds Dean of his very short-lived thrash-metal phase after high school, and why he gave it up. "To the third with you!" both mouths crow, and Ephegnimious slams the iron door in Dean's face, careening off with the cart and the damned soul in tow. The thousand-and-one cuts Dean gave the man to get him to confess his every sin will sting and burn in the frozen bile that is the third level. 

Oh well.

Suddenly his belly cramps, hard and burning, and Dean doubles over in pain. _Why_ does a damned soul hold onto a body it doesn't have a use for? The burning spreads, up his spine and into his chest, and the floor is yanked out from under him.

He materializes in Crowley's office. 

" _There_ you are," Crowley mutters, as though he had been looking for Dean anywhere. "I _do_ hope I'm not interrupting anything too important?"

As before, the sudden onset and then removal of the sensation of burning from the inside out is disorienting, but Dean has the presence of mind to answer, "Not at all. Just finished with the last guy." He is blinking rapidly, trying to dispel the sparkles in front of his eyes, so it takes a moment before he notices that he and Crowley are not alone in the office. 

"Well and good. I've summoned a squadron for you; there's been some kind of planar activity somewhere along the Kansas-Missouri border. I suspect Cain is up to something." Crowley stares hard at Dean. "I'd send the squad alone, but as you well know, Cain is the only other Knight of Hell extant, his errantry not withstanding. I need your strength to deal with him." Crowley steps closer, speaking in a softer voice, but the assembled squad of demons can still hear him. "That is the _only_ reason you've been summoned here. Were this not Cain-- _if_ this isn't Cain—then you will spend the next _century_ in the Pit, as you were. They will _follow_ you," Crowley points to the huddle of demons, his face inches from Dean's, "but they will _report_ to me. No side trips, no delays, no detours." He spins away, raising his voice once more. "Find the epicenter of this event; scout, and deal with Cain if Cain needs to be dealt with. If it's nothing to do with him, leave before the Moose and the rest of his Scooby-Doo pals show up."

The rest of the demons begin to dissapear in the tell-tale coils of black smoke, and Dean has to latch onto the essence of one of them in order to teleport to the correct place; Crowley hasn't bothered to actually tell him where to go, and the Kansas-Missouri border is a big place. As soon as he materializes, Dean feels the ripples in space that mean someone's opening doors that shouldn't be there. He's not sure where they've come out, but he knows where his squadron has to go. 

"West," he instructs, and pops through time and space to a little town on the Panhandle. As soon as he materializes, though, he knows they're too late: the ripples are still coruscating outwards from this town (Liberal?....really?), but whatever rock got thrown in the space-time pond has long disappeared from sight. He sighs, turns in a slow circle as the rest of the squadron materialize behind him. He sees the sign but does not show it; this is the first time he's been topside in weeks, and he doesn't want to blow cover by pointing out the billboard that points him directly to the answer to Crowley's questions. 

"Well, that's a disappointment," he grumbles, and faces the squadron: eighteen demons, all in male meat-suits, all wearing the careful, blank looks that either mean they don't think at all or that at the moment, they're all thinking too much. "Unless anyone's got a better idea," he says, "we'll skip over and check in on brother Cain. Aside from that, we're too late to catch whatever happened here."

"No one knows where Cain is," one demon interjects. The rest of the group turn as one to stare at the speaker, and part a ways so Dean can get a look at his face. He's older-looking, and stares defiantly at Dean.

"What you mean is, none of _you_ knows where Cain is," Dean replies. "I know where he's hiding out nowadays."

"Of course the _Winchester_ knows where he is," a closer demon sneers. 

"Can everyone say 'trap'?" another one mutters. 

"Oh, I get it," Dean nods, smiling a tight, humorless smile. "Y'all are scared. Yeah, no, no problem. Why don't you all just skitter on home to Crowley and hide under _his_ skirts while I go finish the job. Sound good?"

"Scared?" The first demon snorts. "Of _you_? Please. You ain't got the Blade, do you? An' without the First Blade, you're not really any better'n any of us, _Winchester_."

"I killed you once, didn't I?" Dean asks quietly. It's not the response anyone in the group is expecting, and more than one of the demons takes an involuntary step back. Dean steps forward. "Yeah, sure I did. A long time ago, I think. Back before this--" he yanks the cuff of his sleeve up, exposing the red, pulsating Mark on his forearm. "Back when I was _human_. D'you remember how it went down? Huh?" He is still taking slow steps forward, and the demon—the older guy—is still taking baby steps backwards. Dean keeps himself clear-eyed and normal sized. 

"Was it the demon-killing knife we got from Ruby?" he asks softly, never letting the other demon blink or look away. "Did I scrap you with a salt shell, or hit you with iron? Maybe you're one of the ones I sent off with the exorcism ritual. Was that it? Do you remember? Or maybe," he comes nose-to-nose with the guy, who cannot look away, and who has nowhere else to retreat to. "Maybe I blew your brains out with the Colt. That sounds about right. Click-click," Dean holds two fingers up to the guy's temple, then cocks them away: "boom. And you're stuck in that body, aren't ya, fizzin' and spittin' like bacon on a grill. You know you all smell like paper burning when you die? That always surprised me. Not pork, or brimstone. Burning paper."

He lets the guy look away for a second, but all of the other demons have drawn back. They're watching the tableau, but none of them will meet his eyes. When he turns back to Dean, the Knight is taller. Broader. The lines on his face look to be carved from rock and his eyes are black from corner to corner. 

"That was without the First Blade, too," Dean murmurs. He straightens and addresses the rest of the group: "Now, I know where Cain is. I got no plans to go after him unless he's the one opening holes in the world, and if he is, then I will do exactly what the Boss wants me to do, and I will end him. If anyone doesn't believe me, you're more than welcome to run back to Crowley and whine at him. See where that gets ya." Dean takes the knowledge of Cain's location and _pushes_ it into the demon's head, pressing his thumb to the guy's forehead and rocking it backwards. Then Dean disappears. 

It's raining, and the hissing fall of drops through the long grass is a nice counterpoint to the low drone coming from the beehives that encircle Cain's cabin. Dean closes his eyes, letting the cool rain and the quiet press in around him for a few seconds before the little _plff_ s of expanding air start behind him. He counts the full squadron materializing behind him before striding foreward, without a word.

The door opens as he approaches, a tall, bushy-headed man silhouetted in the entrance. There is a candle or a fire burning inside, and Dean can smell bread and honey.

"Dean," Cain says, evenly, as Dean steps under the eaves, banishing the water from his skin and clothes. Dean can feel the strength baking off of Cain, can almost taste it, and this is Cain at rest. "Has the time come, then?"

"That's up to you, I guess," Dean answers, studying the older Knight. Cain's beard is whiter than it had been the last time, and his steel-gray hair is shot through with more white. He is stooped over, as though he has been working himself too hard lately.  
"You aren't carrying our Blade," Cain observes, and his gaze flickers to the squadron that is arrayed before his cabin door, standing patient and stoic in the drumming rain. "Excuse me," he says to Dean, and, stepping onto the porch, kicks a small wooden rod—a broom handle, Dean thinks—into place across the path that leads up to the front door.

Instantly a massive shape shines up through the long grass: a devil's trap, probably thirty yards across and laid out in sticks and branches across the expanse of Cain's front garden. Instantly the squadron starts to yell: _traitor_ and _I knew it_ and a dozen more less-polite phrases, mostly directed at Dean. And then Cain waves his hand, and each and every demon in the squadron is struck mute. They're still trying to yell, but there is no more sound. Dean's not about to question. 

"The rank and file have their use, but I find it's better not to let 'em talk too much," Cain advises. "I'm not going to let you in," he adds, "but if you're not here to kill me, I _am_ curious as to what you're doing here." 

Dean sighs. "Crowley wanted me to look into some inter-dimensional activity that he detected around here. Now that Hell knows where you are, he thought you might be involved."

Cain stares at him for a long minute, then shakes his head. "Not I, my friend," he says. "I have no need or desire to go gallavanting around the other realms. You know Kansas is right across the border, right? Maybe the old Oz stories are true."

Dean winces. "Yeah, we checked there too," he says awkwardly. "No flying monkeys."

"Running Hell's errands, then. Well, you have gone native, haven't you."

Dean glares. "What else am I supposed to do? I can't die, and I..." he sighs heavily. "I got sick of fighting it. So here I am.

"And your brother?"

"Sam is...safe, as far as I know. I haven't seen him in a couple months, so I dunno, he could be back in law school or he could be sled-dogging across Alaska by now. No idea."

"You don't think he's given up on trying to cure you, do you?"

"Nope." Dean says, mostly to the ground. "Probably not, anyways. But what's the use, right? No cure for the Mark."

"None that I know of, anyway, or have ever been able to try."

Something in his tone makes Dean look up sharply. " 'Try'? What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm the only Marked person I've ever known. Not like I can experiment on someone else. "

"What kind of experiments?"

"Nothing concrete, not really. My power exceeds all other demons', even yours, although who knows how powerful you'll be after a few thousand years? So there's no use in throwing myself against the castle walls of Hell, because I already know that the Pit will just spit out more demons for me to kill, and they know I'll keep killing any demons they send out against me. I can't send the Mark away; the person taking it has to be willing,and it has to go somewhere. I've thought about trying--"

"Wait, back up. 'Send the Mark' where?"

Cain eyes Dean for a long moment, before stepping back from the doorway. "Maybe you'd better come in after all," he says. 

The squadron stays outside, captive.

 

The cabin is much as Dean remembered it: neat and tidy, with worn wooden floors and a stone fireplace. The chairs are new, and so is the table; they still look handmade, as though Cain took the time after his last battle with a Hellish squadron and hand-carved replacements for the furniture that was almost certainly destroyed. The giant stone slab that served as a mantlepiece over the fireplace has been cracked, and from the pattern of the split in the stone, Dean can tell something—or some one—was used as a high-speed hammer to crack the ancient slab. All in all, the place is pretty much the same.

The new table is covered in paper. Dean thinks the sheets are blank until he steps closer and can see the thin black lines inked across them: whorls, arcs, curves, and circles, sometimes spiralling in different directions, sometimes blossoming across the page. There has to be a ream of paper here, spread neatly across the big tabletop. Surreptitiously inching one of the pages aside, Dean can see that the layer of pages three or four sheets down is suddenly covered in color. This one seems to be crayon, but there look to be watercolors, markers, chalk, and thick paints the further down he goes. Each sheet seems to have been reserved for a single hue. 

"Mandalas," Cain says quietly, coming up behind him and handing Dean a steaming mug. It's coffee, probably boiled on the stovetop, but the gesture is still welcome. "The Buddhists use them for meditation and to calm the mind. I thought it might help."

"The bees aren't doin' it for you anymore?" 

"Oh, they're pleasant enough. I just have this image in my head..." Cain shuffles through the top layers of paper and holds up a page. This one is done in shades of maroon, from near-black to pale, watery wine. Upon this closer examination, Dean can see that the black guidelines of the mandala have been drawn by hand. The swirls seem to suggest an almost human shape, although it's very hard for Dean to pick out. 

Brown, umber, violet, cranberry, maroon, cabernet...finally Dean finds a sheet that's splashed with bright, poppy-flower red. Cain makes a disapproving noise as it's pulled from the pile. 

"The color's still not right," he murmurs, and Dean tries not to squint at the diffuse shapes in the mandala. This one is very unsettling. 

"That's...a liver, right?" Dean squints. "Liver and lungs? Is that what I'm lookin' at?" He shifts his gaze, and is squinting at Cain. "You're making mandalas of body parts? Somethin' tells me that that's not what the Buddha had in mind."

The Father of Murder smiles—sort of. It looks like he knows what a smile's supposed to look like, but it's been centuries since he's actually done it. "At this point, Dean, it's an alternative I'm willing to try. I'm not going back to killing for the Mark. I won't. If this works..."

"And does it? Does ... _coloring_ actually make you wanna kill _less_?"

"For a minute or two, now. Who knows? Perhaps this, too, shall pass." Cain digs into the pile of black-and-white sheets and hands a handful to Dean. "You might try it."

Dean waves the papers away. "I got my hands full with damned souls that are too fuckin' stupid to let go of their bodies."

"Language," Cain says, mildly, beginning to gather up the mandala sheets from the table. For a few moments the cabin is quiet, with only the whisper of sheets of paper against one another. Dean sips his coffee, and it's bitter and burnt-tasting.

"Can you take it back?" Dean asks, and startles himself with the question. Cain pauses but does not look at him.

"Take the Mark back?" He muses. "You've died, Dean. You might die if I take the Mark back."

"....wouldn't be the first time," Dean replies slowly. "And...I dunno, man. I said it before, I'm just...tired of fighting. If that's the only way I get out of this mess, well, it's not nothin' I've never done before."

The quiet returns as Cain tries to puzzle out the combination of double-negatives in that statement. At last he says, "You still owe me my death."

Dean says nothing. 

"You might be damned all the same," Cain points out. His voice is strained. "Your soul might end up in the Pit just the same, and then we'll be back here in a century or two, having this same conversation about serving Hell. Mark or no Mark, won't make a difference."

"Then it won't hurt to try, will it?" There is a tiny, painful sliver of hope worming its way up through his guts. Dean clamps down on it, but oh, if this is the answer...

Cain sighs, placing his gathered ream of mandalas carefully on a shelf above the window. He turns slowly, pacing back across the stone-flagged floor towards Dean, and he holds out his hand.

The burning nugget of hope blossoms in Dean's belly, becoming an almost physical—no, an _actual_ physical sensation. This isn't right. Dean's stomach cramps and he doubles over, gasping, his hand shooting out towards Cain as fire erupts in his core an the room wavers--

Burning tires and hot metal and the groaning crunch of hot metal compressing on itself. Glass cracks and the thick, rubbery smoke makes Dean's eyes water. He coughs, eyes streaming, and almost retches at the stench. Dean stumbles to the side, trying to get his feet under him and run, not knowing or caring what---

He hits a barrier, hard and sparking, like a wall made of thumbtacks: a warding. A strong one, too; his eyes clear a little, and Dean looks down to see a triple line of salt, rowan ash, and red clay outlining his own personal Devil's Trap. It's what they used when they first caught Abbaddon, and Dean now knows where he is. He turns, slowly, blinking in the stinking smoke of burning tires, to see the Impala burning to ash behind him.

"Oh, Baby..." he rasps, and catches sight of the trio standing beyond the border of the Devil's Trap.

"You idiots," he mutters, before collapsing to the floor.


	14. Carry On

"Yeah, he's still not talking," Sam says, sliding the great iron door shut behind him and pressing a bloody palm to the warding sigil on the center. There is a reddish flare, and the door is sealed.

"Well, you did destroy his car," Castiel deadpans. This is an old joke by now: Dean has been trapped in the chamber they call the Panic Room for a week and will probably never forgive Sam, Charlie, and Castiel for sacrificing the Impala in order to summon him. Sam....well, Sam certainly loved the car. The Impala was as much a part of his childhood and the last dozen years for him as it was for Dean; there were memories, there were good times and bad, there were bloodstains and food stains on the seats that would never come out. But did that matter? Dean was the focus of Charlie's reverse-time spell. The Impala was the focus they needed to summon Dean. And if everything else went right, they'd never have lost Baby, or Dean, in the first place. 

What use was mourning the loss of a car that they'd have back, undamaged and whole, soon enough?

"How's Charlie's work coming?" Sam asks, starting down the hallway towards the rest of the Bunker. No one's been outside since they returned from Kansas; meals are a mixture of dried stores, put-up preserves, and the rapidly-dwindling supply of perishable items that remain from their last grocery run. Charlie insists that it's not worth going out for supplies when she's so close to finishing the spell and getting things "put back where they should be", as she puts it. To Sam's mind this means they should be popping credit cards at the seams and eating lobster every night, but Charlie's taken on this unsettling, otherworldly, hunted aspect lately. She's determined to fix everything, and she's determined to work out this spell. 

"She's actually taken a break," Cas answers, nodding at Sam's surprise. "I don't know if that means she's hit a wall or had a breakthrough, but at the moment she's asleep in her room. Nisha is preparing soup and sandwiches, and wants us all to have a discussion over lunch."

 _Lunch_ is something of a misnomer: it's around 10 am, and Sam has been up since midnight with Dean. Charlie is pulling odd hours and all-nighters, so of course her internal clock is probably no longer ticking; Nisha has been helping Charlie, running tests and fetching spell ingredients, and Cas....

The Metatron's grace is fading, and fading fast. Cas is careful with its use—he's reset the massively complex Devil's Trap that's holding Dean in the Panic Room, but that's it—but still, the grace is escaping, little by little. Instead of using his own grace, though, Cas is holding onto the vial, usually rolling it between his fingers inside one of his trenchcoat pockets. (Sam knows he's not aware of it, and so hasn't had the heart to point out that this looks very much like Castiel is playing with himself through the coat pocket. Which, in a way, he is.) As it dissipates, Cas is....shrinking, Sam thinks. He's not losing height, but he's diminishing, like he's fading out of the frame in a bad 80's ghost-story movie. The vessel that was Jimmy Novak has been used hard these last few years, and Sam worries that there's not much holding the physical Castiel together any more. 

Nisha is, indeed, stirring a pot of soup on the stove in the kitchen, looking only slightly less worse for the wear than Cas. Sam has never seen anyone drink as much coffee as Nisha has consumed in the last week, and he wonders idly if her half-angel nature has something to do with her heart failing to pop with caffiene overload. She's probably been awake for around 50 hours at this point. Sam gives her a small, awkward one-armed hug as he moves past the stove. 

"Sandwiches are make-your-own," Nisha nods at the table, where an odd assortment of fixings have been laid out: hamburger buns and dinner rolls, ends of various blocks of cheese and mason jars of pickles, jams and jellies, and a truly massive canister of what can only be called government-issue peanut butter. Cas returns a moment later with Charlie in tow: she's rumpled and there are sleepless bruises beneath her eyes, but for once she's not snarling at anyone to leave her alone and let her get back to work. Charlie picks up a dusty glass jar of preserved peaches and slumps into her chair, popping the lid and picking a slice out with her fingers. 

There's wordless quiet for a few minutes while soup is doled out (clam chowder from a can, augmented with a few potatoes and the last of the plain coffee creamer) and everyone eats. Then, almost out of nowhere, Charlie sits forward in her seat an announces, "We're done with the spell."

Sam swallows, carefully, before asking, "So what does that mean?"

"It means," Nisha answers slowly, looking at Charlie, "that after the spellcaster is sanctified and the ...components are assembled, that we can proceed with the end of this crazy plan you-all have come up with."

"Wow." Sam lets his spoon clatter back into his bowl. "I mean...wow. Charlie. This is amazing. Charlie!"

"Yeah, Sam, wait til I tell you what this is going to take," Charlie interrupts. She presses the heels of her hands into her eyesockets, rolling pressure against her skull. The other three wait for her to continue.

"First of all, there wasn't ever going to be any way for us to unravel time, not by ourselves," Charlie says finally, and Sam's heart starts to sink. "There isn't enough power available to us, not even by half. Even to send someone back in time would take...well, more than even Castiel can provide, as we've seen.

"So we had to come at this from another angle. We need to appeal to someone who has the power to unravel it for us. And in order to get their attention, we're going to need to offer them sacrifices as...as payment, I guess. Is there coffee?" She asks suddenly, looking at Nisha. The nephil hesitates, then shakes her head. 

"Sorry, cherie. We've got a couple energy drinks left, but other than this we are out of stimulants."

"Your buddy Kevin didn't leave any speed or anything lying around?" Charlie asks Sam, and he shakes his head. "Man. Ok. I'm gonna need, like, the ultimate power nap before we go through with this, OK?"

"Sure, Charlie, sure," Sam answers, "but ...what are you going to have us do?"

"We're gonna call on the Moirai, Sammy. The Fates. I'm going to summon the three Fates and ask them to pull all of our threads out of their great big life-blanket and start over."

Silence.

"The Moirai don't talk to mortals, Charlie," Castiel says, quietly. "Not even magical mortals." 

"They'll talk to me," Charlie says, and scrubs her face with her palms again. "The base of this spell is an ancient Greek invocation, and there is _one account_ of it working about eight thousand years ago. I've translated the invocation and built ...well, think of them as bait-traps, I guess, on top of the anchoring parts of the spell. And then there'll be the bribes, to get them to pay attention."

"Charlie, this whole time you've been talking about power and how we don't have enough," Sam reminds her, as gently as he can. "How is this any different?"

"Age, Sammy. Remember? Ancient beings build up power with time and belief. Fate has been a concept, at least, for longer than humans have been walking upright. And I'm not going to force them to do anything. I'm just going to ask them to answer my call, and thank them very nicely for talking to me."

Cas is still shaking his head, but Sam is starting to warm to Charlie's exhausted enthusiasm. "And how do we thank them?"

"With...with bribes." 

" 'Three lives that span the mortal plane, between them balance of the holy and the wicked'," Nisha quoted, softly. " 'Offered by a hand shriven and cleansed, with joy and reserve in equal measure.' "

Sam can't even wrap his brain around what she's said, and so he simply asks, "Huh?"

Nisha looks at him. "Between three people, we need an equal measure of heaven and hell. One angel, one demon, and one half-breed. So I don't get out of this after all."

"But you're half _human_ , aren't you?"

"Of course. But I'm the closest thing we have." 

"Oh." He can't think of anything else, so he reaches across the table to take her hand. She gives his a squeeze before letting go and continuing.

"We can try to summon another demon—Charlie's pretty good at that by now, after all, but we think that could be Dean himself, although he's also the focus of the spell. We can also try to find another angel." Nisha looks at Castiel, who is still slowly and methodically eating his soup. 

Cas doesn't look up. He just keeps eating. 

"And so the spell caster has to be 'shriven and cleansed'--"

"Charlie will need to confess and be absolved of her sins, then anointed with holy oil to sanctify her. There are some pretty specific instructions about that. We'll need a priest, or someone to act as one."

There is a snore from Charlie's corner of the table. She's still sitting upright, but her head is tilted to one side, her eyes are closed, and she's definitely succumbed to the late nights and hard work. 

"Aaaand power nap is a go," Sam chuckles, sliding out from the table. But Castiel is up and moving already, arranging Charlie's hands in her lap so that they don't flop around when he hoists her out of the chair. His strength is surprising. Suddenly they are gone: Cas has obviously teleported them both to Charlie's room, and Sam wonders what this use of angelic powers means. He doesn't want to seem like he doesn't trust Castiel, but he has the sudden urge to run down the hall to Charlie's room and make sure that they both made it there. 

++++

Every bloody time he has to show up to this stupid cabin in the woods, it's raining. Always. All the bloody damn time. Crowley is pretty sure the Knights of Hell don't have any control over the weather—and damned if they did, because he'd jump on that power post-haste and carry Fiji with him every time he had to come topside—but Cain _must_ have some sort of weather charm working around here. For a beekeeper, the man has an un-fucking-natural love of dampness.

A Devil's Trap. Really. Crowley can _smell_ the sacred wooden rods that make up the perimeter—oak, rowan, ash, and thorn—and the lingering scent of burnt paper, even with the waterlogged atmosphere. _Fan.Tas.Tic._ Another squadron of demonic enforcers up in smoke, and that thrice-damned Winchester in the wind. Again. 

_You know I'm here_ , Crowley sends towards the cabin. _Let's pretend to be civilized about this, shall we?_

The cabin door opens a moment later, and Cain's lanky figure bends double to pick something up from the ground: a wooden rod, part of the confining circle of the Devil's Trap. He holds it up so that Crowley can see it, then walks to the end of the porch and sets it carefully down on the seat of an honest-to-fucking-goodness cane rocking-chair, before heading back to stand at the door. The message is clear: Crowley and his escorts can at least cross the Trap without fear of, well, becoming trapped. He hesitates but a moment, then resettles the lapels of his very smart, very wet coat and steps across the edge of the Devil's Trap. The two demons accompanying him—a pair of salesgirls from the crossroads—step smartly in tandem, one holding an umbrella for her King, the other with her hands folded neatly in front of her. Behind them, entirely unseen, a pair of hellhounds pad through the tall grass. Extra reassurance for the King.

"Your Majesty," Cain greets him at the door, but does not step aside to let Crowley enter. Fine. These silly games exist to be played, after all.

"Sir Knight," Crowley replies. "I was hoping to bend your ear for a tic. Is this a good time?"

"As good as any," Cain replies, still standing steadfast in the doorway. Crowley sighs, looks down at the ground, then looks up again, meeting the taller man's eyes with a meaningful look. Cain's sharp, washed-out baby blues gaze back, blankly innocent. 

"Let me not intrude too much on your time," Crowley bites out, finally. "I sent a squadron out under one of my Knights not too long ago, and I know they came here. Do you have any idea where they might have ended up?"

"I can tell you that your squadron was caught in yon Trap and eventually decided to give up their human forms," Cain answers, nodding towards the front lawn. "As to you Knight? I was under the impression that you had summoned him back."

"And how came you by _that_ impression?" Crowley asks.

"Well, he _was_ summoned _somewhere_ , though I suppose I know not where at this point," Cain says, slowly. "As I remember it, the symbols of summoning used on Knights of Hell are the privileged possession only of the King of Hell and Lucifer Himself. As he was summoned _from_ here, I assumed he went _to_ you."

"Dean hasn't got a sigil yet," Crowley muses, thrusting his hands into his coat pockets. These are wet, too, and he draws his hands out, feeling like he's just dipped them into a vat of dog drool. Making a face, he turns back to Cain. "I have enough traces of him to be able to summon him directly, but there shouldn't be anyone else...." He trails off.

"Traces?" Cain asks, watching Crowley's face carefully.

"Between blood, lost teeth, and his idle hours during his first week, the man's left enough DNA around my office that I could clone him six times," Crowley answers absently. "Take a black light to his favorite chair and it's like looking at the sun. You," he snaps his fingers at the left-hand demon, and she steps forward, bowing. "Pop on over to the Winchesters' hidey-hole and tell me what's going on. Take the dogs, but don't sic 'em on anyone just yet." She bows again, and vanishes without so much a puff of black smoke. He turns back to Cain.

"I suppose now we need to settle that account, the one where you destroyed a group of my favorite bully-boys," Crowley rubs his still-damp hands together, knuckles cracking. The umbrella-holding demon moves off to the side of the door, out of the way of the coming surge of power. 

"Oh, _them_ ," Cain says, and shakes his head. "Excuse me just a moment, will you?" And with that, he turns into the cabin, shutting the door behind him.

Crowley stares at the door for a moment. _Did that really--- did he really-- he fucking just--_

And just before the King of Hell decides to blast the door down with hot acid, it opens again, and Cain is holding a mason jar full of what looks like black paint. "Your squadron, sire," he says solemnly, handing the jar to Crowley. Upon closer inspection Crowley can see the symbols and lines etched into the glass, and beneath that, what is not paint but dense, swirling black mist, so thick that it appears to be liquid. 

"And this is...?"

"I told you, they gave up their human forms. I bottled them so they'd stop being such a nuisance. I was going to hand them back to Dean when he returned," Cain adds. Crowley just stares at him.

"You've killed...how many of them? All of the Knights of Hell, all of the Princes and Dukes you could get your hands on, all of the demons I and every other King of Hell has sent against you. And yet you...you _canned_ this squad to _give them back to Dean_? How--" Crowley can feel himself purpling in the face. This isn't exactly anger, but he's damned if he knows exactly _what_ it is. 

Cain's expression has gone from helpful to stony. "And I preserved this lot. I can kill them if you'd like. After all, I do still have to obey my _liege lord_."

Crowley cannot fucking answer that. There's just no bloody fucking way he can answer that. Wordlessly he hands the jar over to the umbrella-holding demon, who winces as her hands touch the etched sigils on the glass, but she holds the mason jar for him. The smoke that drifts up from her hands barely registers against the scent of wet grass that surrounds the cabin. 

There is a sudden puff of air as the other demon materializes on Crowley's other side, sparing both he and Cain from continuing the "demons trapped in a fucking Mason jar" conversation. She stumbles a little, bracing herself against the wall of the cabin for a moment, and Crowley is reminded that Cain's wards and magical walls around this stupid little cabin are fairly formidable. The demon straightens, blinking blackened eyes, before bowing slightly to her King.

"There has been no movement at the Men of Letters' bunker for the last few days," she reports. "Absolutely none. The wards and protections are still in place, but there is no sign that anyone has left, by foot or by car, for at least a week. Either they are completely hidden away in the bunker, or they are not there at all."

"Wonderful. Great. Terrific. Fan- _fucking_ -tastic." Crowley bares all his teeth in an expression that is not a smile. "Well. I'm going back to Hell and I'm going to try to get Dean back to somewhere that I can keep a goddamn eye on him. Cain." He tips his head slightly in the Knight's direction, and Cain returns the gesture. "Always a pleasure, must do this again, none too soon. Lovely." Crowley lets his powers surge right there on the porch, whipping a hot wave of force around his demonesses and his dogs, and flings them all back towards Hell. 

He wasn't exaggerating about having traces of Dean Winchester in his office: once he's alone, Crowley slides a panel on the wall aside to reveal a trio of long shelves, each carrying a load of carefully-labeled jars, vials, and flasks. Each container holds something: dried blood, locks of hair, broken teeth, patches of skin, fingernail clippings or, in some cases, a whitish, crusted goo that has dried to the bottom of the jar. Two of those jars are Dean's, but Crowley doesn't want to waste them on a summoning: there are far better things to do to a person when you can bind them by the desire of their bodies. Instead, Crowley takes a small test-tube off the shelf and closes the cabinet. The panel slides into place and disappears, leaving blank wall. 

The test-tube is crusted inside with thick dried blood. Dean Winchester has ever been an able—if not willing—blood donor, and Crowley has enough of his blood stored to summon him across ages if needs be. He gives the tube a shake, and the brownish crust of blood is transformed back into the rich, arterial red liquid it had once been. A wave of his hand clears his desktop, replacing the whole desk with a fully-prepared altar. Touching his fingertip to each of the seven candles that ring the pentagram in the middle, Crowley lights them, closing his eyes to savor the rush of strength that flows up his limbs to glow in the center of his chest. He inhales, and when his eyes open again, they glow a solid ruby-red.

The ritual is simple, and one he's performed a thousand times over, but recent circumstances are making Crowley cautious, so he takes his time with each step in the summoning. Were Dean unbound, or nearby, Crowley could have simply conjured him with a thought; already Crowley can feel the walls rising around his Knight, attempting to block the summoning. He calls more power to him, and continues: he uncaps the test tube and drops a dollop of Dean's blood on each of the candles, earning a hiss from the wick and filling the room with the stench of burning blood. _Holocaust offering,_ he thinks, and allows himself a lazy smile. If he could bottle that smell, well...he doubts anyone else would buy it. Fuck them. He'd douse himself in it and be redolent of animal sacrifice everywhere he went. 

The last splash of blood lands on the smoking bowl in the middle of the altar, and the incense there flashes with a blue flame. Now his power is washing back over the room and Crowley commands, "Dean! Come to me. By all my powers, great and small, I summon thee, I conjure thee, and abjure thee: Obey me, thy lord and master, and arrive humbled and begging forgiveness." Crowley reaches through the smoke above the altar, grabs a handful, and _pulls_.

(And in the Panic Room, deep within the Bunker, behind layers of concrete and iron, manacled and handcuffed to an iron chair, Dean does his best to double over in pain. A burning hand has wound itself in his guts and is trying to yank him back by his navel. He groans, bloody spittle spraying from his lips, as the room begins to shake. He can smell blood burning, and the Devil's Trap he sits in is flaring to life.)

Crowley frowns: he is blocked by iron, and spells, and wards, and a magnificent Devil's Trap. Dean _must_ be in the Winchesters' bunker; there is no where else in the world that has this level of protection on it. He tightens his grip on the blood-smoke and tugs a little harder, but he knows this is akin to a cat trying to pull a chicken through a wire fence: feathers will fly, but the dead chicken will remain on the other side of the fence. 

It's an _answer_ , at least, if not a solution. He knows that Dean's been summoned and trapped by his brother, and since Moose knows full well how to turn a demon back into a human, Crowley can guess what the next step is for his Knight. He releases his grip on the smoke, and all at once the candles and incense snuff themselves out. 

(Dean sags in his chair. Sweat and snot run down his face; there is blood leaking from his lips and nose, and bile on his shirt front and on the floor in front of him. His intestines no longer burn, and the room has ceased its shaking. The blackness behind his eyelids sparkles, and he knows he's going to pass out. Just before he does, he hears the creak and scrape of the Panic Room's vault door opening.)

Crowley sits at his desk, banishing the altar at the same time, and thinks for a while. On the one hand, Dean hasn't been particularly _useful_ as a Knight of Hell, and all of Crowley's attempts to bring him to heel have been failures of one sort or another. If the Moose were to succeed in "curing" him, he'd still lack access to the First Blade, as well as a few of the more esoteric demonic powers he probably hadn't even discovered yet. The Mark, however, would still keep Dean alive, making the older Winchester nigh-unto indestructible. He could be killed and incapacitated, but until and unless someone else acquired the Mark and the Blade, he couldn't be done away with permanently. 

Dean has the potential to be a pain in his ass for a long, long, _long_ time. The only question is, is he a pain in the ass that Crowley could eventually control? It might take years, or decades, or centuries, but eventually the inevitability of his situation would have to make it through that thick Winchester skull: indeed, he'd been showing signs of breaking, giving in. Indestructibility would have its uses, as far as Crowley was concerned: he could grind Dean to dust and be there when he rose, finally ready to do his bloody job. 

Most of Hell hates Dean Winchester, and for good reason. Crowley is pretty sure that the only reason he hasn't seen a coup over his Knight's very existence is that he himself has been doing most of the beating on Dean. Oh, he's delegated here and there, but for the most part the citizens of Hell have seen Dean punished by the King's own hand, and there's nothing like seeing a favorite fall to keep the slavering masses entertained. If Dean stayed in Hell, however, there was no chance that he'd avoid stirring up that huge cauldron of hatred that the demons held in reserve for the Winchesters. Human souls in Hell tended to lose perspective; it was only natural, given how long it took to twist a soul into a demon. The minute Dean seemed to be out from under Crowley's bad graces, someone would take it upon themselves to try and assassinate him—his abilities to crush a normal demon notwithstanding. 

And there was the Hunger to consider: Cain had gone through centuries of gleeful murder before getting the Hunger of the Mark under control. Dean had been, thus far, placated by killing the remaining insurrectionists in Hell, but sooner or later, the Mark's Hunger for blood and killing would rise up and overwhelm his self-control. Crowley has no idea how beekeeping translates to not wanting to murder everyone anymore, but it took Cain millennium to reach the point where he didn't have to bathe in the blood of innocents every few days. There is no doubt in his mind that Crowley can think of a thousand ways to make use of a thousand years of bloodshed on behalf of Dean Winchester, and giving into that Hunger would bring Dean more and more under his control and direction. 

All valid points to consider....

Crowley mulls it over for a while longer before making his decision.


	15. Just To Be Sure (an intermezzo)

"Dean?"

The voice at the door isn't Sam's. That's good. His brother's midtone grating had been scraping against his last nerve for a while now, and only the amazing amounts of iron and spellwork that had been crammed into the Panic Room had kept Dean from responding in an appropriate manner. Dean blinks the salt-crust of dried sweat and tears from his eyes and looks up. He knows he is a hot mess right now. He doesn't care.

Charlie stands just inside the vault door, looking like he feels: wrung out and exhausted. She isn't sporting an interesting slurry of sweat, spit, snot, and blood down her front, though, so she's one up on him. In that moment, looking at her, Dean is reminded so forcefully of Kevin Tran that he can almost feel a hand closing around his heart and squeezing. It's just a feeling, though: no more failed summonings manifest, and Charlie steps hesitantly forward.

"What happened?" She asks, quietly, hands thrust deteminedly into her pockets. 

"Someone else tried to summon me," Dean rasps, and coughs. His mouth tastes like moldy socks and blood. This is the first time he's spoken in a week. 

"Is it always like that? I mean, summoning?"

Dean doesn't really feel like talking anymore, but hey—this is Charlie, the little sister he never wanted. At least it's not Sam again, ranting and pleading and ugly-crying. Charlie's just asking.

"At first, yeah. If I get pulled through, all of this--" he nods down at his ruined shirt and, oh Christ, his lap too, dammit--"goes away. But I'm guessing the walls here were too strong, so no magical healing for me."

There is a whisper of movement, and when Dean looks up, Charlie is gone again. He sighs and sags back into the chair; at one point he'd almost found a position to sleep in where his hands and feet all stayed free of pins-and-needles. The trade-off was a crick in his neck, but it was the least uncomfortable way to sleep in this damned chair. _why does a damned soul hold on_ He closes his eyes and sighs carefully around his sore ribs.

The door creaks again and Dean cracks an eyelid to see Charlie returning with what looks like a plastic shoebox in her hands. She pauses at the edge of the Devil's Trap and mutters something before stepping carefully across the triple lines of ash, salt, and paint. Dean is impressed. Every time Sam's come in, he's had to loudly chant the incantation that lets a person cross the warding lines of the outer circle. Dean's also pretty sure he anointed himself with oil the first time. Charlie, on the other hand, barely speaks aloud, and Dean can feel the ward close seamlessly behind her. She doesn't walk straight to him—and he's secretly proud of her cleverness—but paces in a wide arc until she's standing just behind and to the left of his chair. He can't see her, and she's not close enough to grab with one of his manacled hands. 

So smart, his Charlie. 

He hears the lid on the shoebox pop, and there are noises of rummaging around, ending with the sound of tearing paper and a flapping. A cool pad suddenly swipes across his forehead, leaving a strip of cleaner-feeling skin that smells faintly astringent. She moves into his field of vision, holding a wet-nap.

"I'm going to clean you up," Charlie explains, softly, "and you don't have to move or do anything. I'll get all that mess off your face, but if you try to grab me or bite me I'm going to hit you. Deal?"

Dean nods, once, not taking his eyes from Charlie's face. Christ, she looks tired. She's got bruised circles under her eyes and her hair is scraped back from her face, probably to avoid reminding her how long it's been since she washed it. Her cheekbones are more prominent, as is her nose; Charlie has been skipping meals in favor of getting done whatever it is she's doing. She moves in, avoiding his gaze, and swabs his forehead again.

She works in silence for a long time, and Dean eventually closes his eyes. She gently scrubs the dried blood from under his nose and chin, wiping down his neck before going back to her shoebox for another wet-wipe. Carefully she wipes under his eyes, leaning in to erase the salt-tracks that ran down the sides of his face as he sweated what felt like buckets during the aborted summoning. Her quiet is soothing, and for a minute or two Dean lets himself relax under her ministrations. 

At one point he feel her hand brush his lips—lightly, probably accidentally—and for no good reason he snaps at it, lunging forward. But Charlie's always been quick, and these last months have taught her the virtue of being even faster: she's out of his reach in a second, and there's a brief flash on his right side as her hand connects with his cheek. The sting is echoed on the other cheek as his head rocks right around and connects with the back of the chair.

Dean coughs and shakes his head, and looks up to see Charlie pointing one shaking finger at him. "What did I tell you?" She demands. "I told you not to do that."

Sudden, unexpected _rage_ wells up in Dean's chest and he snarls at her, baring all his teeth and lunging again at his restraints. His eyes blacken and he can feel everything tighten around him as his demon nature swells his body. The iron chair doesn't so much as wobble, but he surges again and again against the manacles, feeling them bite into his skin, feeling the blood blisters rise and burst as the chains pinch him in a dozen places on his legs and arms. He roars at Charlie—wordless, and the epitome of fury. How _dare_ they keep him here!

Charlie backs away another step, but doesn't retreat. Instead she squints at him, then raises both hands with her thumbs pointing towards him and her fingers pointing towards the floor, palms facing each other with space between them. She chants in what sounds like Gaelic, and Dean feels the anger pour out of him, and it's a physical sensation, heat flowing out of his throat as though he were a pitcher. His breath follows it and he gasps, suddenly feeling empty once again--

What feels like a wave of scalding water slaps him across the face, and his clothes are suddenly soaked through. He coughs and spits, but there's no actual water—now just a blast of heat, like standing in front of an enormous hair-dryer. Just as abruptly it's gone, and he's gasping, limp in his restraints once more, and--

He's clean. Everything smells like bleach, and his mouth tastes like industrial-strength mint, but his shirt and his jeans are as fresh and crisp as if he'd jumped into them straight out of the dryer. He blinks, squinching his face and shaking his head, and there's no astringent tightness from the wet-wipes, and no feeling of cracking dried blood or sweat on his skin. He may as well have never sweated in these clothes at all. Even his socks inside his boots are warm and clean.

"I call that one 'Silkwood Shower'," Charlie comments, shaking her hands in front of her: _her_ hands are wet; the only wet things in the room. "I had to take the power for it from you, but since your little tantrum wasn't doing anyone any good, I didn't think it'd matter." She crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him.

"You're coming up as quite the little witch, then, huh?" Dean replies. 

"And you're turning into quite the little bastard, aren't you?" she shoots back. 

"I've _always_ been a bastard, Charlie, you know that."

"No you weren't," Charlie shakes her head. "You were an asshole a lot of the time, but you also cared about the people who cared about you, and you at least _tried_ to fight back a little against the things that wanted to drag them down."

"...Is this about the lunch date? Because you have to know that that wasn't my fault--"

"No, this isn't about the fucking 'lunch date' where you made me consume _half my weight in cheese fries_ and then almost got me brain-raped by the King of Hell," Charlie snarls. Her own anger is building up in her chest, and either she's going to get this all off her chest or she's going to be dousing Dean with another Silkwood Shower spell. "What this _is_ about is you _giving in_ to the Mark, _giving in_ to Hell and _giving in_ to fucking _Crowley_."

They glare at each other for a solid minute, but even with his eyes blacked Dean can't match Charlie for fury right now: she pulled all of that out of him with her little spell. He blinks, letting his demon nature subside, letting the whites of his eyes fade back in, and sighs. 

"What do you want, Charlie?" Dean asks wearily. He's tired. He's been tired of this shit for so long, and just _plain_ tired of everything since becoming a demon. "Just....just tell me, okay? What do you want, plain and simple."

"I wanted to see if you were okay." He looks up, startled, and she shrugs. "Hey, the house shakes and we smell smoke, we're gonna figure something's up with the guy chained up in the Panic Room."

"Don't worry, I didn't get out. You can tell Sam I'm still his happy houseguest."

"Dean—" Charlie shakes her head. "Seriously. I wanted to make sure _you_ were okay. Sam didn't send me in here. I just..."

She sighs, leaving the participle dangling, and turns to leave. 

"Charlie," Dean calls after her, and she pauses right at the edge of the circle, looking over her shoulder. A little bit of hope flares in her heart: Dean would apologize, prove he was still _Dean_ and that she was going through all this for a reason, that the Dean she knew and loved was still in there, somewhere--

"You come in here again, and I get the chance, I'll probably kill you," Dean calls. There's no malice in his voice, just fact, and Charlie's hope dies. "You, Sam, Cas, your little nephil buddy, doesn't matter," he adds, "I'll gut you."

Charlie's stuck, warring against herself at the edge of the circle. She should slap him with another scalding dose of bleach water. She should forgive him, because the demon in him is like a tumor on his brain and he doesn't know what he's saying. She should abandon hope now and just walk away from all of this. She should strike his chains and let him do his worst. She should drive an iron pike through his chest and nail him to the chair. 

Charlie mutters the brief incantation and steps out of the circle, then through the vault door , closing, locking, and sealing the Panic Room without looking back. 

"You left your box," Dean mutters into the silence, and smiles wide, baring all his teeth, for no good reason at all.


	16. Then and Now

The lapis powder is a deep, vibrant blue against the flat gray cement of the chamber floor. It glows against the heavy barrier of olive-wood ash on one side and finely-ground salt on the other, looping in intricate circles towards the center of the labyrinth they've laid out here. Nisha can't really look at it directly; even though she poured the blue barrier herself, whispering in Greek the whole time, the corridors of the labyrinth seem to shift if she stares at them too long, twisting like some impossibly long, living and livid blue snake. A snake that color would probably be poisonous if it actually existed, she decides. And then she wonders what that might mean for this ritual.

Charlie sits on a three-legged stool at the center of the labyrinth, a pot of burning incense at her feet. She is naked; there is nothing sexual about it. Her flaming hair has been clippered down to a fine coppery fuzz on her scalp, and Sam helped her paint a symbol on the crown of her head in black soot and white lead paint. Charlie chants the same sonnet over and over again, and though Nisha's Greek isn't quite as fluent as hers, she's worked over this hymn with Charlie so many times that she knows the translation, in both English and her native French:

_Come, hands upon the shuttle,  
And show to me the loom  
Where written are our lives and deaths  
Long, short, knotted among themselves like roots.  
Give me but a glimpse of your great work  
And I will fall, dazzled, into your fingers  
To be stretched and spun anew_

The ritual began at sundown, and barring anything happening, Charlie was to carry it through to sunrise. Being cleansed and shriven was surprisingly easy; she'd been viewing it as a chore not unlike Catholic confession, but the ancient Greeks and the modern Catholic Church had different ideas about what constituted a stain on one's soul. Both Nisha and Sam had helped to cut her hair, and then the two of them and Castiel had wrestled Dean and the iron chair into this chamber while Charlie walked the labyrinth that was laid out on the floor. She'd drunk the honeyed wine proscribed by the ancient ritual before she started, and now, after almost two hours of ceaseless chanting and breathing in incense smoke, the room turns in lazy circles around her. Charlie closes her eyes, her voice droning on almost of its own volition.

Dean fought the move for almost a full hour after his relocation, but at last, he's quiet. Castiel is standing nearby, his senses spread out with the last of Metatron's grace: he can feel the power Charlie is pulling from the earth below them, almost like the tug of a retreating wave against his ankles. The power streams into the labyrinth, spinning and strengthening itself with each hairpin turn and double-back; it flows into Charlie through the soles of her bare feet. Cas can see it; if Dean would turn to look, he could probably see it, too. Cas wonders if Nisha can see Charlie now glowing a very, very faint blue. 

 

++++

Moonrise is a little early this evening, as befits the oncoming summer. Waxing full, but not there yet, the moon peeks out from behind a thin scree of leaves overhead, and Garth's thankful—not for the first time—that he's almost relying totally on his ears and nose to make this trip through the woods and up the hill to the blackberry bushes. Bess insists that blackberries are sweeter when picked by moonlight, and he knows that if he argues she won't make him cobbler. The little ones needed an adventure outside, anyway, and if going blackberry picking for Momma means that they'll tire out and sleep sometime tonight, Garth is happy to go on that trip.

Jessica and Japheth crash through the underbrush, making enough noise for two human children. It's all right, they don't know how to hunt yet; still, Garth'll be grateful when their cousins start teaching them how to move quietly through the trees. Indoors or out, his pups are a noisy pair—but they're his, and they've got Bess' smile and Jessica's cornsilk hair is the same shade as her momma's, so Garth, like most besotted fathers, is willing to let his offspring get away with almost anything. 

They reach the top of the hill and the kids almost dive into the bushes, racing to see who can fill their plastic bucket first. (This'll take a while, as they're "sneaking" two berries for every one that actually makes it into the bucket. There are purple smears on both sets of cheeks already: "sneaking", indeed.) Garth chooses another stand of bushes and starts methodically stripping the spiny vines of the darkest berries. 

Suddenly there's a...noise, but not coming through his ears. The _world_ shivers, and the pups race to him, dropping their buckets and whimpering. In a flash Garth has gathered them in, his fangs descending and claws stretching out from his fingers as he snarls. There is no smell on the wind that says "predator", and he hears no other heartbeats on the hilltop besides his and the racing staccato of his children's. That _noise_ comes again, a sound that is also a push, as though the hill they stand on has become a giant bell. 

In a heartbeat, Garth swings the kids up in his arms and is racing down the hill towards the house.

++++

"Who calls the Moirai?"

The voice tolls through the Bunker like a great bell, and the pressure of it rolls over Charlie and leaves her gasping. She falters, losing her place in the repeating hymn, and panics for a brief second, fearing she's lost hold of the spell. But the apparition in front of her looks steady, and Charlie rises from her stool, her knees suddenly weak.

"I—I do," she says, stammering only a little. She raises her hands, trying not to think too hard about the thin, blue-and-silver streams that are flowing from her palms to the edges of the apparition before her: as though a door appeared in thin air, Charlie can see into a room. It is bare stone, walls, floor, and ceiling, with a firepit in the center. Three figures, cloaked and hooded, sit on stools like hers around the glowing embers of their dying fire. The middle one is the one that is speaking. 

"Has been a long time since the old forms were used," the figure muses, gesturing to Charlie with one hand. Apparently that arm hasn't been used in a while, because the elbow pops loudly amongst the crackling of paper-thin skin. A thin dustcloud drifts upward as the figure moves to stand. "A long time, indeed. This one has power, sisters."

There is a horrible creaking, crackling noise as the other two figures turn their hooded heads in Charlie's direction. Though she can't see under their voluminous cloaks, Charlie imagines dried, mummified skin cracking and splitting into scraps along the ancient necks. 

"No," rasps another of the figures, the one on the left. It rises, so slowly, and there are snaps and pops and tearing noises as it straightens. "Whatever is wished here, the answer is no." 

" 'No'?" Charlie squeaks, then holds her hands out. "Please—wait!" The vision is fading, and she can feel the power of the spell slipping through her fingers. " _Wait!_ " She yells, and the word blows the gathering mist from the corners of the room. The two standing figures stagger, as though something has shaken the floor they stand on.

"Ancient of the Titans, powers before and above gods, please hear me," Charlie recites the line fast, in English, hands still held out in supplication. The middle figure crosses its arms within the folds of the cloak.

"And who are you to ask of us anything?" It demands peevishly. "We have received from you no worship, no offerings or libations. You have sacrificed nothing to gain our attention, though you have done it in this ...barren place."

This was not part of the ritual, Charlie thinks frantically. "I know—I know I have to right to ask," she stammers, out of sync with the lyrical hymns she'd used earlier, "but please, please, you're the last hope we've got. Please just hear me out."

The three heads move in unison, first to the right, and then the left, and Charlie knows in her breaking heart that the gesture is one of refusal. It's so final. It's so unfair.

++++  
The hillside above them explodes in a shower of dirt and gravel, and Dorothy throws herself over Toto's shoulders to shield him from the hunks of dirt and bedrock that slam down around them. "They're getting closer!" she yells, fighting to be heard over the screams and panic of the Munchkins further downhill. "Any second now!"

Toto whines, but nods his head. This plan is so far from Plan A (as good ol' Chaz would say) that he's not even sure how it became a viable course of action, but then, desperate times, desperate measures, and all that. He thrusts his nose under Dorothy's chin: they have to move before the next shell lands, or they'll be blown to smithereens and Kingdom Come all at once. Dorothy straightens, lifting her good arm to wave a long yellow pennant towards the East: almost instantly, a horn sounds, and there's cheering and howls as the Wolves thunder down into the Valley, arrowing towards the siege-castle that blocks the main gate to the Emerald City. The archers in the tower send scores of arrows into the charging pack, but there are still almost a hundred Wolves that reach the base of the tower, cut and seize the guidelines anchoring it to the ground, and begin to pull the siege-castle, tipping it over with a ponderous majesty that awes the entire battlefield into silence for a moment.

Just a moment, though: "Incoming!" screams the lookout on the hillside, and the team of constructs that had followed Dorothy and Toto up the hill scramble to raise the giant piece of hammered tin that they'd dragged up behind them. The missile—a huge ball of rough twine, soaked in pitch and lit ablaze before firing—slams into the metal sheet with a noise like thunder.

Then it bounces off and goes flying back towards the City wall, crashing through the spear-wielding soldiers and archers that had clustered there. There are screams, and two-armed torches race along the top of the wall, defenders of the Emerald City who hadn't been lucky enough to miss the splashes of burning pitch that accompanied the fire-bomb's return flight. Dorothy cheers with the rest of her soldiers, Toto barking ecstatically, as the soldiers on the wall scatter: the parapet and crenelations are smoking and sparking in some places, but the burning ball of twine has made it down into the courtyard below and the screams are audible even from here. She's _sure_ the Wizard is readying his escape, even now. Dorothy yells and gestures with her pennant, and a trio of flying monkeys flap up the City wall, dragging behind them a thick rope-ladder that is swarming with eager, bloodthirsty Munchkins as soon as it is anchored.

"We're in," she breathes, kneeling next to Toto and draping the pennant over his back. She is staring at the veritable fountain of Munchkins making their quick way up the ladder and over the wall. "Toto, we did it. We're--"

The ground shakes and Munchkins fall from the ladder, screaming. The whole _sky_ chimes like a clock at one, and Dorothy cringes against Toto, frantically searching the sky for the source of this newest attack.

++++

"Atropos, please," Castiel's voice rings out from his corner, where he's keeping Dean contained. 

The three figures turn in eerie unison towards his voice, and finally the figure on the far right speaks. "How.... _dare_....you," it pronounces, and Charlie hopes everyone else feels the floor shake, too. That way she's not actually in danger of passing out from panic. " _How dare you_ speak to me, Misbegotten traitor. You have no right to ask of me anything."

"I ask for nothing," Castiel answers. "I do but present myself as offering for the boon Charlie asks."

"You? A _sacrifice_?" The rightmost figure turns its attention back to Charlie, and Charlie is suddenly reminded, in a very profound and powerful way, that she's not wearing a single stitch. "You know the rules, and must obey them if this is true."

"It's true. I have accepted the terms of this contract and do offer myself on her behalf."

All three heads tilt to the side, as though considering his words. "Very well," they rasp in chorus, and the other two turn their attention to Charlie. "Give voice to your boon, child. To have the troublesome angel in our hands has made us...patient, although not unendingly so. Speak!"

"Ancient of the Titans..." Charlie stammers. The lines of the ritual are the only things that come to mind. "...look with favor on my request. Pick apart the tapestry that we may unravel a knot and smooth the weaving once more."

"You should know better than to make this request of us, child, if you have been long in the fallen angel's company," the middle figure says. "Once did he meddle in our affairs, and well he knows the price of such interference."

"The price is one I can pay," Charlie answers quickly. "See here what I offer—a being of the Pit, wickedness embodied--"

The rightmost figure holds up a clawlike hand, and Charlie's words are cut off. "What desperation have you, Castiel," it whispers, "that you include your beloved pet in this offering?"

"Hey, sister, over here!" Charlie says impatiently, then claps a hand over her mouth. The three figures swivel again to her in unison, and Charlie sucks a deep breath through her nose before lowering her hand and continuing: " _I_ present the angel and the demon for sacrifice, with their willing consent. _I'm_ the one who called you here. Castiel is but a part, not the whole." 

"Hey, no, no consent here!" Dean calls from his chair, struggling against his bonds. Cas grabs his shoulder and shoves him more firmly into the seat. "Hey, blondie! I still remember the _Titanic_ , you bitch!"

"Oh yes," the third figure murmurs. "Yes, this proposition is sounding better by the minute. I shall enjoy sucking the years of your life through your eye sockets," it calls to Dean. 

"Um, ew." Charlie mutters. "Moirai, please. I'm asking yout to turn back time so we can stop some terrible things from happening. This will stop a lot of people from getting hurt and will correct the balance of Heaven, Hell and Earth. Will you help us?"

Three crabbed hands reach slowly up to each of the hoods and pull them back, and suddenly Charlie's not looking at a trio of nameless, sexless spooks, but three different women. None of them are mummies, all of them seem to be human, and when they speak, their voices all sound different. They're still speaking in chorus. 

"And who are you to decide that this is best for the world?" The Fates ask. "Who are you to decide which is the greater of the evils—that which is known, or that which is unknown? This is not a power given to mortals, nor, indeed, to us."

The rightmost Fate is a young woman with long blonde hair. Charlie is more than a little surprised to see that she's wearing glasses. "Ask your companions how much benefit there is to changing a single event."

"The Gates of Heaven being sealed against angels and souls? Don't you think _that's_ an event the world could've done without?" Charlie replies. "Or Metatron using the mortal world as his fanfic playground? How about the rise of the Leviathans and all the gross crap _they_ did to people?"

"We will not grant you all of these," the middle woman warns. She is older than the blonde, but not very old; her dark skin is peppered with darker freckles, and her tightly-braided hair is a fascinating blend of black, gray, red, and white. Charlie wonders if it's ironic that the younger Fate—Atropos--wears glasses, while this older one (probably Clotho) doesn't seem to need them. "If we decide to grant this boon—and we are not convinced, mind you—we will unravel but one event. _Just_ one."

"And that is if you change our mind," the third woman says. She is older than both of the others, her skin so seamed with wrinkles and browned by age that she could be from anywhere. Her hair is silver, and hangs over her shoulder in a long, thick braid, and even seated, she leans on a cane. "I, thus far, am unconvinced."

"We _could_ just take the offerings and depart," Atropos suggests, leaning in towards the other two. "This request is abhorrent, after all, and we are not trusted with the destiny of the world only to go around unraveling it at the whims of mortals."

"Then _you_ must decide, Sister, if your hatred for these beings outweighs your common sense," Lachesis snaps. "There are Rules. If the sacrifice be accepted, then a boon must be offered."

Clotho nods. "We are so bound," she adds.

"The sacrifice is incomplete," Atropos shoots back, and turns again to Charlie. "Have you found one whose blood balances these two creatures? Oh, for--" she says, wrinkling her nose at Charlie. "Here," she says, and waves her hand—and Charlie is wrapped in a long, heavy length of black fabric that is pinned at her shoulders and belted at her waist with a golden cord. She tries not to be _too_ obvious in her sigh of relief. 

"Here," Nisha calls, stepping carefully over the lines of the labyrinth to stand next to Charlie. Sam steps with her, but more slowly, fitting his bigger feet awkwardly between the lapis lines.

"Now _this_ is an interesting spice," Clotho says, leaning forward and peering at Nisha and Sam. "Such a rare creature, this child of an angel. And look, at her shoulder, a man whose life has been lived in death. Interesting spices, indeed."

Belatedly Charlie realizes what she means. "No, he's not—I mean, Sam's not a part of--"

His hand lands on her shoulder, and Charlie is afraid to look at him, knowing what she'll see in his face. "Charlie, it's all right," Sam murmurs. "If this helps us fix things, it's all right."

"A trio that balances wickedness and divinity, offered by a hand shriven and cleansed, with the willing sacrifice of a life lived in death," Lachesis murmurs. She squints, leaning far enough forward on her cane that she stands, although her back is so obviously humped that she cannot straighten up. "According to the old forms by which we are summoned, Sisters, this offering is complete."

Charlie is so tired of getting her hopes up, but there they go again—the tiny fluttering in her chest; the deep breath, the trembling in her hands. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

++++

Fucking _rain_.

Of course it's raining. It's the proverbial "dark and stormy night." And of course Crowley's chosen _this_ one as the night to make an assault on the Men of Letters Bunker. Fuck . Bloody fucking fuckity fuck.

No one to blame but himself, after all. Maybe there'll be some kind of poetic justice in all this mud and sogginess. Crowley raises one hand—only to shoulder level, because he's not going to look the idiot by knocking his own umbrella over in some bloody grand gesture—and motions the first wave of demons forward. They walk in an uneven line, spaced about twenty feet apart, and he's got them placed just so all around the Bunker's perimeter. Each one seems to hit an invisible wall, and stops. Crowley can see the ones nearest to him straining against the first magical barrier, pushing against the warding spells. No one gets any further than their stopping point, and after a moment, Crowley curls back his lips and whistles sharply. Time for Plan B.

Each of the demons produces a cloth bag from somewhere on their person—pockets, handbags, backpacks—and sets it carefully on the damp ground. They're bigger than hex bags, each about the size of a man's shoe, and once they're laid on the ground Crowley snaps his fingers. The demons scurry to get out of range, but some—those down the road, or across the acreage that is bordered by the protection spells—are not fast enough, and as the bags ignite their demon essences pour from the bodies they've possessed, sparking in the air like firecrackers wreathed in smoke. The bodies lay in the muddy road, twitching, while the demons swirl around in the air, confused. One or two drift apart, their sparks dying. 

Meanwhile, the power-dampening mixture in the bags is igniting and sending little fingers of greenish flame out and up the invisible wall. There is a _pop_ when one stream of fire meets with another, and soon the streamers have coalesced into a sheet of flickering green that creeps up towards the top of an unseen dome. Crowley is impressed: the dome that marks the range of the Winchesters' first-line-of-defense wards is a good fifty feet high.

Fifty feet and coming down, that is....

The flames meet at the top of the dome and expand suddenly, as if someone had blown oxygen directly into them. The flare licks tree limbs and leaves, and despite the rain, Crowley and his assault corps are pelted with burning pine cones twigs. Crowley tilts his umbrella forward slightly to block the worst of the debris, smiling as the green flames race back towards the ground, consuming their bags and disappearing into the earth. There is a second of silence, and then _whumpf_ \--a ring of dirt and mud blows upwards as the wards belowground are destroyed. The ground shakes, just a little.

"One down, many to go," Crowley murmurs to himself, and gestures the next rank of demons forward. 

++++

Clotho leans towars Charlie from her stool. "Tell me why," she commands. It's a simple demand, but Charlie opens her mouth and nothing comes out. There's too much, and it's not like she prepped a powerpoint for this or anything. Clotho quirks an eyebrow at her silence and smirks, then turns to Sam.

"You, whose thread has been cut and spliced and wound around so many nexuses in time, tell me why you do this. Tell me why your death has come to us, over and over again."

"I—" Sam starts, coughs, then clears his throat and continues. "I've spent my life trying to protect the world against evil, and darkness, and monsters and demons. Charlie's plan would erase one of the biggest evils the world has ever seen, and would save lives that didn't need to be ended." He slides his eyes across to gaze at Nisha, then looks over to Dean, who is still thrashing in his chair. "This will put things back where they belong, put _people_ back where they belong."

"Think you so?" Clotho tilts her head. "And who are you, to say that this isn't what and where the world belongs all along? We _know_ you, Samuel Jonathan Winchester. You, who have changed the path of so many lives, who have rewritten so many destinies, who have flung yourself into danger time and again— _we know you._ And we _know_ that sooner or later, you and your brother—demon or no—will throw yourself again into the teeth of death, at the cost of so many other likely paths. What is the expression used now? Ah, yes—like bulls in a china shop."

"Perhaps the best course would be to take you and leave the world in peace," Lachesis adds meditatively. "For it seems to me--" she spreads her hands wide, and between them she stretches a glittering golden cord--"that it is the knots in your own threads that bring on such disruption to the world." Indeed, Charlie can see that the cord she holds is almost completely knotted, end to end. Some of the knots are small, some seem even decorative and elegant—but others are fat, fraying, bulky things, ugly twists in the gold that have threadbare ends hanging from them. Other colors seep into the cord at the knots: red, brown, black. "And see your brother's thread, which is in far worse repair than yours," she adds, clapping her hands together and pulling them apart, with a new cord, just a little longer than Sam's, twisted between her fingers. Dean's cord is the same gold, but it is blackened in places, and stained brown in others. Spliced into one end is a gnarled red cord, like twine, and the place where the red and the gold meet is an ugly tangle of fibers and snapped threads. 

"Look at what these do to the Tapestry," Atropos says, and gestures to the wall behind them. There is a flare of light that almost blinds Charlie, and as she blinks away the afterimage on the inside of her eyelids she sees candles and torches alight, and the wall is suddenly a glittering, shining mass: a massive weaving covers everything she can see in the Fates' chamber, draping across the walls, down to the floor, around corners....Charlie can see individual threads, pick out spots where the color is different, but for the most part her brain is stuttering over _so much gold_.

"Here," Atropos points, and indeed, there is a section of weaving that doesn't flow with the rest. The other threads that Charlie can see have been spun in an orderly pattern, warp and weft, but this maelstrom of cording is puckered, like a badly-healed wound. She can recognize Sam and Dean's oft-knotted threads in and amongst the others, wound around some cords and with others—many others—knotted to them and snapped off. The threads switch paths every so often, disrupting the weaving even more, and it's at these intersections that most of the ugly knots appear. 

"And here," Atropos picks up a trailing cord that hangs from one side of the scarred area. This cord is frayed, badly, and is silver instead of gold. There are other silver threads tied in and snapped off along its length, as well as on Dean and Sam's cords. "Here is poor Castiel, soldier of God, who has so entwined himself with these two. Do you see how fragile he has become, how disruptive to the whole design?" 

The more Charlie looks at it, the more malformed and twisted this part of the Tapestry seems. She swears it writhes under her gaze, becoming more and more entangled with itself, pulling and snagging the threads around it until the creases and the puckers it creates are reaching further and further out through the Tapestry.

"Let us undo some of this," Nisha steps forward. "Help us to untie some of these knots and ease the strain on the Tapestry. Please, let us try to make this right." 

"Why?" Clotho demands, stroking the fabric protectively. "What have you to believe that it would be any better off if we take it apart?"

"Because my thread would never intersect theirs, never become tangled, and my sister--" she chokes a little, "—my sister would never have to die. Hers would be a long, straight, stable thread in the weaving, holding it against this warping."

"Ah, the dreams of the nephilim," Clotho murmurs. "To guide humanity true, and to be left alone to do so. Is this why you have so entwined yourself with these fools? Is this why you throw away the length of time remaining to you?" She holds up a copper-colored cord, long enough so that both ends drape on the ground and pool at her feet. 

"Yes," Nisha answers, and though there are tears tracking down her cheeks, her voice does not waver. "I would give the rest of my days if it would undo the harm to one who would share my days with me."

"Harm that was wrought by those who stand beside you!" Atropos snaps, and points an accusing finger at Castiel. "Was he not the one who severed your sister's life-thread? And was he--" her finger shifts to point at Dean, "—not the one for whom all of Castiel's labors were undertaken?" She turns to indicate Sam. "And this one! Is he not the one for whom the demon has spent his life and years so recklessly?"

"I do not contest this," Nisha answers calmly. "I ask this for myself, not for them. I am entirely selfish in my motives."

Charlie wants to laugh, but a quick glance to the side shows Nisha's face set in a clear, impassive expression o determination. _Oh,_ Charlie thinks weakly. _So I guess that's...true._

++++

There is a trench now, running five miles or more around the circumference of the Winchesters' hidey-hole. Some of the demons teleported the dirt and mud from their sections of the ditch; others gave vent to frustration with pickaxes and shovels, flinging mud out of their way. Crowley had stood well back from all of this, watching as the diggers exposed the upper corners of a massive concrete slab. Even from twenty feet away, Crowley can feel the iron in it. His demons are pacing restlessly, giving in a little at a time to the manic irritation of being so close to so much iron. Crowley snaps his fingers and one of his crossroads beauties appears at his elbow.

"Bring the demo teams in. Tell 'em they'll need everything they've got," Crowley growls, and the girl bows shallowly and puffs out of sight. Demons toting duffel bags move through the brush, pushing their maddened compatriots out of the way as they reach the trench. Each duffel bag is opened carefully: each duffel contains enough magically-enhanced explosives to level a stadium. Crowley hopes these will be enough to crack the Bunker's shell. 

Crowley—and the demons who've been around long enough to develop a sense of self-preservation—wink out of sight as the charges go off, blasting dirt, trees, stones, and pavement in every direction. Those who haven't are vaporized, demonic essence and all. There's no _visible_ mushroom cloud or fireball, but Crowley's still just had his demons set off the magical equivalent of a multi-ton warhead, and the earth shakes for ten miles in any direction. The Bunker's second line of wards are hammered with charms and hexes to negate magic, to negate angelic power, and to simply pulverize concrete and metal. As the dust settles and Crowley pops back into place, a slow smile creeps across his face: the concrete slab is fractured in a thousand places, turning it into so much iron-laced rubble. He motions his telekinetics forward, and they start moving the debris, exposing the Bunker's next layer.

"That's two," Crowley purrs. 

++++

Everyone feels the ground rock, but the Sisters are the only ones who don't react. Plaster dust drifts down from the ceiling, and in the silence that follows, Dean starts laughing.

"Told ya, Charlie. I told you I'd kill you all!"

"The _fuck_?" Nisha says, rounding on Dean. He's...not really smiling, but all of his teeth are showing and his lips are skinned back. "What did you do?"

"This ain't me, sweetheart. This is Hell, comin' to get me back." For the first time, Dean looks comfortable in the iron chair. "I told you to leave me alone, Sammy. Left you a goddamn note and everything. Left you my Baby. I got myself away from you so you could stand a chance of living, and what'd you do? Not only did you _sacrifice my fucking car_ , but now you've pissed off the King of Hell and all his minions, and they're gonna take this Bunker down around your ears." He flashes his teeth at his brother once again, and says, "I'll come back alive after they dig me out. None'a the rest of you will. Good job, Sammy."

"You don't know that," Charlie says. "You don't know it's Hell out there. It could be...something else. Something to do with this spell."

"Thought you were smarter than that, kiddo. Of course it's Hell. I can _feel_ the bastard, and I can _feel_ every damned soul he's brought with him. 'Hell is empty, and all the devils are here'," he quips. "I can tell ya, I'm probably due for another forty years in the pit, but at least I'll come out on the other side. He brings this Bunker down, ain't nobody gonna find your bodies, and there's no way you'll be coming back from the dead this time."

Charlie turns pleading eyes to the Sisters, who sit stoically upon their stools, all of history woven on the walls around them. "Please," she says.

" 'Please' what?" Clotho asks, with all the patience of a mother facing her toddler's meltdown. "Do you make another demand of us? There is but one thing that is in our powers to grant, child, and we have not even promised that to you yet. Decide which case you plead before us: you have not earned enough of our goodwill to ask for another favor."

Charlie looks frantically around at her companions, but all that happens is that Nisha's hand lands on her shoulder with an encouraging squeeze. "Help us undo what has been done," Charlie says, her voice small. "Help us right the evil that has come into this world. Please, help us and unravel time."

"And that is your wish? Your one true wish?" Lachesis asks.

"It is," Charlie answers. _Don't cry, don't cry, don't start crying...._

"Sisters?"

The three Fates stand and join hands, speaking once more in eerie unison. "We accept your offerings," they pronounce, and Nisha's hand drags down Charlie's arm as she collapses. Sam, too, thuds to the floor, and Dean gives a strangled kind of moan as he goes limp in his chains. The only one still standing is Castiel. He draws his hand out of his pocket and holds it up to Atropos.

"All that is mine to give," he murmurs as she plucks the vial from his palm. Then Cas, too, is slumping to his knees, opening his mouth to sigh out one last wisp of bluish-silver: Metatron's grace, spent. 

Charlie falls to her knees, scrabbling in the blue dust for Nisha's wrist, frantically seeking her pulse—and it is gone. Already the nephil is cold, her skin like marble.

"Remember, child, that you asked for this," the three voices intone. Again, the Bunker shakes.

++++

Peeling away the layers of iron that had been embedded in the Bunker's walls had cost him more and more demons each time: compelled by his command to complete the task, they'd fried themselves on the metal plates until they lost their holds on their hosts and were ejected, crackling, into the air. Crowley knew that, given enough time to recover, they'd return to Hell—return home—and posses new meatsuits when they were sent topside again. Still, it's a little unnerving to see how few of his forces remain.

Five layers of concrete and steel, each with protective spells between them like insulation: no wonder this'd been such a fucking hard nut to crack. Each successive layer had cost him more and more esoteric spells to counteract the wards, and hadn't he been saving _them_ for a bloody rainy day. He'd break Dean for this, and probably snag the Moose's soul for good measure. Oh yes. Hundreds of years of torture, just for the two of them. He'd drag their bleeding corpses back to Hell where they belonged and toss that whining bloody giant into Lucifer's Cage to stew for a century. Then he'd give Dean to the dogs for a chew toy. See how much fucking spine he could keep from being ground into the floor of the hellhounds' kennel. 

And now, just one more shell to break: the protections laid under the plaster walls inside. Crowley smiles a smile of genuine anticipation and raises both hands, chanting in Latin and summoning his power to him. At the end of the infernal couplet, he draws a slim little knife from under the lapel of his coat and casually slashes open the palm of his left hand; then he rubs his hands together, getting the blood across both palms, and claps his hands, once. 

An eminently satisfying, crackling blast sounds, and as the dust settles, Crowley finds himself in the unprecedented position of looking down into the Bunker's main library. Here is where Moose and Dean spent most of their brotherly lovely time, talking about their feelings and deciding which of Crowley's plans to royally screw up; and there is the kitchen, where each of them would stealthily eat his feelings and drown his man-tears in, oh, probably ice cream, beer, and cake. No, pie. Pie was a better choice. 

Crowley feels his remaining forces gather around him, and to his pleasant surprise, there are demons roiling in the air above, free of their human hosts. "They're in there, my children," he announces, his voice a rattling purr. "Find them, but keep the Winchesters alive. Do as you wish to everyone else."

The demons pour through the hole in the ceiling, most appearing on the floor of the Library before sprinting off in different directions. The cloud of black smoke tumbles through, too, and Crowley teleports himself elegantly to the middle of the room to begin his own leisurely stroll through the Winchesters' last safe place.

++++

The crash of falling chandeliers is unmistakable, and Charlie huddles in the middle of her labyrinth, clutching Nisha's stone-cold hand and staring at the vision of the Fates before her. Clotho holds what looks like a silver letter opener in one hand, while with the other she is helping Lachesis part the threads of the Tapestry around Dean and Sam's cords. The Bunker has shaken twice in the last ten minutes, and this last time, Charlie felt something evaporate from the air around her, leaving her gasping. She is _so_ glad that she's not going to have to remember feeling this exposed, this vulnerable, this fragile: she will never have felt it, and that's a giddy, heady thought. 

Atropos appears next to her, kneeling in the lapis dust. "We have chosen the point to which we will unravel these threads," she says, in her own voice. "There is but one clear choice if you truly wish to circumvent the evils as you named them."

"But—but we knew—we _know_ when that has to happen," Charlie stammers. "We had a point in time picked out. It's just before they find Metatron--"

Atropos holds up her hand, and Charlie falls silent. "That is not the point in time on which these evils turn," she says sternly. "You asked for this boon and we are granting it: do not presume to tell us how it should be accomplished." Just like that, Atropos is back in the chamber with her Sisters, who are stretching Dean and Sam's ruinous cords out from the Tapestry. Clotho holds in one hand a collection of other threads: Charlie recognizes Castiel's silver thread, and Nisha's long copper. There are a score of others in the Fate's fist, and Charlie supposes that her own is in there, too.

The Fates speak one last time in that eerie chorus. "Your offerings we take with gladness, and grant this boon for their sake. Time and destiny are undone, and for worse or better, here we change the world."

Clotho raises her silver knife

(and in the brightly-lit kitchen of a northern Wisconsin farmhouse, a father and mother freeze in the middle of comforting their frightened pups)

(and atop a crenelated battlement made of emerald, a young woman aims a pistol at a guardsman who charges her with a halberd, each of them still as statues)

(and in the halls of what had once been a safe haven, as his subjects root in the debris for books and items of power, the King of Hell is paused with his hand on a vault door, the smug smile of satisfaction frozen on his face)

She brings the blade down in a slashing cut

(the father is swabbing a tissue against his son's cheek, wiping away both tears and a smear of berry juice)

(far below, a dog who has chosen not to Talk stares in desperation as his most beloved mistress readies her shot)

(he knows what he will find on the other side of this door, and that it will be the start of the most entertaining time of his long life)

There is a hot blinding flash and a terrible noise.  
And then, for a moment, darkness and blessed silence.

 

......The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you go, Otter. ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and commenting. If you're on [tumblr](http://tobinlaughing.tumblr.com/), so am I.


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